"Kant's Transcendental Idealism" discussion and reading group
I decided to restart Kant's Transcendental Idealism by Henry E. Allison, as I found I had not taken sufficiently good notes for me to fully understand the text. This topic is meant to be a place for myself (and anyone else) to share their notes, thoughts and questions on the book. I will periodically update this as I proceed through the book.
For reference, I am reading the first edition, not the second edition, because the first edition was cheaper, and I'm also a sucker for old books. But feel free to use either edition here, just please let everyone know what edition you are using so we avoid any unnecessary confusion.
For reference, I am reading the first edition, not the second edition, because the first edition was cheaper, and I'm also a sucker for old books. But feel free to use either edition here, just please let everyone know what edition you are using so we avoid any unnecessary confusion.
Comments (101)
Summary:
What Allison calls the "standard picture" of Kant's transcendental idealism is roughly defined by P. F. Stawson as the doctrine that reality is supersensible, and that we can have no knowledge of it. Kant is interpreted as being an extreme skeptic, because his position is taken to entail that we can only know what things seem like to us, and not how they really are independent of us.
Allison shows that this interpretation fails to distinguish between the empirical and the transcendental version of ideality/reality, and appearances/things-in-themselves.
Allison offers three senses in which the ideal/real can be understood:
The general sense of these words are:
The empirical sense of these words are:
The transcendental (the philosophical reflection of experience) sense of these words are:
From these definitions, Kant can be said to hold that empirically real objects and transcendentally ideal, and that a transcendentally real object is non-sensible (noumena).
Allison also offers two levels in which appearances/things-in-themselves can be used:
The empirical level (the "language of experience"):
The transcendental level:
He then goes on to define what an "epistemic condition" is: it is a condition or rule that must be conformed to in order for an object to be a representation. It is an "objectivating" condition. These are not logical conditions of thought, like the principle of contradiction, which demonstrates the difference between general logic and transcendental logic. They are also not "conditions of possible experience", like a brain, an eye or an ear, nor are they psychological conditions, like habit or custom. They also are not ontological conditions of being a thing in themselves, like the Newtonian vision of the substantiality of space and time.
Questions/Thoughts:
Summary:
Allison claims that there are two metaphilosophical positions that one can hold: transcendental realism, and transcendental idealism, and that they are mutually exhaustive and exclusive. While individual metaphysical positions may differ in details, they must belong to one of these two metaphilosophical positions. Indeed, Kant claims that all metaphysical theories before him, such as those of Descartes, Leibniz, Malebranche, Berkeley, Hume and Locke, can all be defined as holding a common prejudice which defines transcendental realism. Kant also holds that it is this common prejudice which has caused every one of them to fail.
Allison begins by elaborating on what is meant by transcendental realism:
The common prejudice of transcendental realism is that it confuses representations (appearances) with things-in-themselves. The transcendental realist takes the spatio-temporality of objects' externality to entail the independence of these objects from the subjective conditions of human knowledge; they hold that space and time are aspects of objects as they are in themselves. In other words, they conflate the transcendental sense of actuality with the empirical sense. Kant claims that transcendental realism entails empirical idealism; which is basically an external world Cartesian skepticism.
There are other conflations of terms in transcendental realist theories:
Then, Allison says that transcendental realism can be further understood in terms of what he calls the "theocentric" model of knowledge. This model has it that human knowledge can be compared to a theoretical "absolute" or "infinite" intelligence which knows objects are they are in-themselves, i.e. a "God's eye view". This is well demonstrated in the Leibnizian doctrine of the analyticity of all propositions; for any true proposition, according to Leibniz, the predicate is contained in the subject, and that any syntheticity of truths is from the limits of humans and not a nature of the truth itself. In this way, Leibniz can be said to have "intellectualized" appearances.
Another example of theocentrism in transcendental realism is that of Locke's nominal and real essences, which can be understood by the analogy of the outside and the inside of a clocktower; the outside is merely the appearance, while the inside holds all of the gears and wires that the clocktower is made of. For Locke, human knowledge is limited to some outward appearances. Divine knowledge is not a difference in kind but a difference in amount; God simply has more perception than humans, he is able to see the entire clocktower.
All of these examples show that the transcendental realist share a common assumption: that "genuine" knowledge is of things-in-themselves. But transcendental realism fails to recognize the a priori conditions of knowledge, and it also fails to make the transcendental distinction for appearances and things-in-themselves which leads to its theocentric model of knowledge.
Allison then goes on to explain transcendental idealism. Just like transcendental realism, transcendental idealism is a metaphilosophical standpoint, not a straightforward metaphysical doctrine, although there are metaphysical consequences of transcendental idealism. It is the opposite of transcendental realism, in that it recognizes a priori conditions of knowledge, makes the transcendental distinction and holds an anthropocentric model of knowledge; the shift from theocentric to anthropocentric is what Kant called his philosophical "Copernican revolution". Kant's transcendental idealism is "critical" or "formal", in the sense that it focuses on the conditions and not the contents of objects of experience.
Kant describes transcendental idealism as the doctrine that
Thus transcendental idealism holds that objects in space and time have no independent existence from us in this manner (of space and time). It is not the claim that objects have no independent existence from us, but that such an existence cannot be attributed to them in the manner in which they are represented (in space and time, the forms or conditions of human sensibility).
The Copernican revolution, or the flip from theocentrist to anthropocentrist knowledge, entails the belief that objects must conform to knowledge, and not vice-versa. While theocentrism holds that true thoughts are those which conform to the "real" nature of the objects of perception, anthropocentrism holds that it is the objects that conform to the nature of the mind. In other words, the way objects are represented reflects the manner of the mind, not of the objects in-themselves. And, as noted earlier, transcendental realism (with its theocentric model of knowledge) is incapable of explaining how we have any knowledge at all, which leads it to skepticism or empirical idealism.
Finally, Allison clarifies how Kant understands the term "actuality" by comparing his theory of transcendental idealism with modern "phenomenalism". Superficially, Kant holds the same thing the phenomenalists do, that first-order statements of unperceived things can be translated into second-order statements about possible perception. But he differs from phenomenalism in that he holds that the possibility of a perceptive state is only a consequence, and not a criteria, of actuality. Whereas Berkeleian idealism holds that only what is perceived is actual, and phenomenalism holds that what is perceived and what could be perceived is actual, Kant holds that the actual is that which is in conformance to the a priori principles of human knowledge. Thus an unseen force, like gravity or magnetism, can be considered actual, even though it not directly perceived, because that is a conclusion that we can draw based on the experiences that we do have, which conform to these formal conditions of knowledge.
Questions/Thoughts:
I found this chapter to be more challenging than the previous two. There are a few areas that I am not confident I fully understand. I need to let these ideas digest before raising any questions, so only the summary is given.
Summary:
Kant uses the Antinomies to demonstrate how reason contradicts itself when thinking about certain questions. He attempts to show that there are two equally compelling but incompatible answers to each question. Kant claims that both answers to each are false and that the questions themselves rely on presuppositions derived from transcendental realism. More importantly, Kant says that the questions naturally arise from the transcendental realistic position, and so if the answers to the questions are all false (leading to a contradiction), then the questions and the presuppositions that ground them (transcendental realism) are also false, which entails that transcendental idealism is true.
Both thesis and antithesis for each question are apagogic. Kant believes that the equal success of each position in refuting each other demonstrates the impossibility of a solution to the conflict that respects the transcendental realistic (dogmatic) assumptions underlying it. These conflicts of reason arise from its demand for an absolute totality of conditions (grounds) for any conditioned (given). This “intellectual categorical imperative” is a logical requirement for a complete justification or explanation for every assertion. Every true proposition must have a ground. Kant claims that problems arise when this logical requirement to “think the whole” is applied to states of affairs, where the totality is the world of space and time.
Only the temporal aspect of the First Antinomy is discussed by Allison in his book. With respect to the world of space and time, Kant says there are two mutually exclusive options when considering its conditions: either there is some first element, limit or beginning, or the inquiry into its conditions extends ad infinitum. These are the thesis and the antithesis, respectively; the temporal world is either finite or infinite.
Allison emphasizes that Kant is focused on the world, and not space and time themselves. The world, according to Kant, is “the object of all possible experience”; it is not merely the whole of representation, but the actual representation of the whole as a united totality. It is not just the thought of an aggregate of items, but the thought of these items as constituting a whole (Ganze).
The thesis (for the finitude of the world) is broken down by Allison into six steps:
1.) Assume the world has no beginning in time.
2.) It follows that up to the present, an eternity has elapsed.
3.) This means an infinite number of successive events has occurred, i.e. an infinite series has been completed.
4.) According to the “transcendental concept of infinitude”, an infinite series can never be completed through successive synthesis.
5.) Therefore the concept of an infinite series of events in the world that have passed away (been completed) is self-contradictory.
6.) So there must have been a beginning of the world in time, a first event.
Allison discusses various critiques of this argument, raised by philosophers like Russell and Stawson. He provides responses to these critiques, and while the issues discussed might be interesting to some, I was not particularly curious about them but was more interested in the later things that Allison brings up.
In the Second Antinomy, Kant distinguishes between a totum syntheticum and a totum analyticum. A totum syntheticum is a whole that presupposes its parts. The question of whether a totum syntheticum is possible is equivalent to the question of whether a complete collection of its parts is conceivable. A totum analyticum is a whole, the parts of which are only conceivable with reference to that whole. Space and time are tota analytica, but the material universe in space and time is conceived as a totum syntheticum.
The alleged contradiction of the infinitistic position is in its application of the concept of infinite to the material universe. Since it is a totum syntheticum, the thought of a complete enumeration or synthesis of its parts contradicts the thought of the inexhaustibility of the infinite. Thus there are two incompatible rules for thinking the same object, amounting to a contradiction. Because the world is taken to be a totum syntheticum, it cannot be a series extending infinitely into the past, but instead it must have a first moment.
However, the presupposition here is that the world is a totum syntheticum. This is the transcendental realist assumption that is rejected by transcendental idealism.
The antithesis asserts that the world can have no beginning in time and no limit in space. Allison breaks it down as follows:
1.) Assume the world has a beginning in time.
2.) The concept of a temporal beginning presupposes a preceding time before the thing exists.
3.) Therefore it is necessary to think of an empty time before the world existed.
4.) But such points of time cannot be distinguished from one another.
5.) A world cannot meaningfully be said to have come into existence at one time rather than another time if both times are empty.
6.) So we cannot meaningfully say the world came into being in time at all, therefore the world is infinite with respect to past time.
Step 6 is a non-sequitur and Kant recognizes it as such, but the point does follow given the fact that the world must be either finite or infinite.
As with the thesis, Allison discusses objections that have been raised by people like Strawson and Bennett. But again, as it’s clear throughout the chapter, even with the rebuttals given by Allison, neither the thesis nor the antithesis are convincingly sound. I think they are less important to the overall understanding of Kant’s transcendental idealism, so I won’t discuss them much here.
To summarize though, Allison says that the conjunction of a first event with a first time is incoherent. An event is defined as a change of state of a thing in time, so the first event designates the earliest change to have occurred in the universe. The problem is that if the first event occurred at the first time, there was no prior state in which the thing existed. An event not preceded by a time in which the world was in a different state is incoherent. Allison says that “it is a condition of the possibility of conceiving of a change of a thing in time that we are able to contrast the state of a thing at an earlier with its state at a later time.” We can say that time began with creation, but we cannot meaningfully claim that creation occurred at the first time.
Allison ends the chapter by focusing on what the consequences are for transcendental idealism with respect to the Antinomies. Because the conflict between the two positions is based on a “transcendental illusion”, it is “merely dialectical”. The conception of an absolute totality of conditions that constitutes the world in itself violates the rules of empirical synthesis. An experience of an infinite space or elapsed time, or a boundary of either, is impossible.
All forms of transcendental realism, according to Kant, must regard the absolute totality of conditions for a state of affairs as constituting a world-in-itself, “in-itself” meaning the independence of this world so conceived from the conditions of empirical synthesis. It is logically committed to the proposition that the world (the sum of all appearances) is a whole existing in itself, but it forgets the conditions of experience in which this world is given. The regulative Idea of totality, which is grounded in the intellectual categorical imperative, is conflated with the thought of an actual object (the world) - and this is the transcendental illusion.
Kant says:
The argument here contains two suppressed premises: that the antecedent proposition (the world is a whole existing in itself, a totum syntheticum) is entailed by transcendental realism, and that transcendental realism and transcendental idealism are mutually exclusive and exhaustive positions. The negation of the antecedent entails the negation of transcendental realism, which entails the affirmation of transcendental idealism.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Schopenhauer's explanation:
Other Schopenhauer quotes that I think are relevant here:
Perhaps scientists should remember this as well as philosophers?
I thought this chapter to be excellent, though certainly dense. It is a chapter in which a lot of important terminology gets explained. I am definitely glad I decided to start over with this text here. Kant's ideas are fascinating but I feel that they take a great deal of patience to fully understand and appreciate.
Summary:
Kant claims that discursive (or conceptual) knowledge is not the only type of knowledge, but that it is the only type of knowledge possible for humans. He explicitly rejects the classical empiricist notion that there can be a purely receptive, sensible intuition of an object without any conceptualization. But what are concepts and what are sensible intuitions, according to Kant?
A concept is a general representation of what is common to a set of objects. Concepts refer to an object mediately by means of a feature, which several objects may have in common. They are always universal and they serve as a rule for the mind to organize representations into an “analytic unity”. Concepts are used by the understanding to judge; Kant characterizes concepts as “predicates of possible judgments”.
The matter, or content, of empirical concepts are the sensible features that are thought in it as its marks, derived from experience and corresponding to the sensible properties of things. The form of a concept is another word for its universality (generality), which is the case for all concepts. It's important to note that simply having a collection of sensible impressions that are associated with one another is not equivalent to possessing a concept. A concept requires the thought of applying these properties to other possible objects. Doing this transforms the impressions into marks, which are partial concepts. Kant says this thought is produced by a series of logical acts that he bundles together under a single term, reflection.
An intuition, on the other hand, is a "singular representation”, which refers immediately to its object. It is a direct mode of representation, which presents a single object to the mind. A key point here is that intuitions do not represent objects until they are brought under concepts during a judgement. It needs to be kept clear whether an intuition is conceptualized or indeterminate. (Allison notes that Kant uses the term “intuition” in more than one way. He says there are three ways Kant uses it: the mental content (aforementioned), an object, and the act of intuiting.)
For Kant, neither intuitions nor concepts alone can yield knowledge; only together can they do so. Through judgement, the faculty of understanding applies concepts to sensible intuitions. Intuitions provide the content for judgements, while concepts provide the rules in accordance with which this content is determined.
Judgement is a mediate knowledge of an object; a representation of a representation. No concept is immediately related to its object, but only to some other representation of it, whether that be an intuition or another concept. The essential function (task) of every act of judgement is to produce a unity of representations under a concept. If this function is fulfilled, then this concept can be regarded as “real”, or alternatively as a determination.
The distinguishing characteristic of the relationship of representations in a judgement lies in its objective validity; they have the capacity to be true or false. Compare this to the unification that occurs in subjective associative acts of imagination, which do not possess this validity. Allison promises to further explain this distinction in a later chapter.
The chapter moves on to the analytic-synthetic distinction. The introduction to the Critique contains two different versions of this distinction.
The first version is that analytic judgements are those in which the predicate belongs to the subject; it is covertly contained within it; this connection is said to be thought through identity. The law of contradiction is the principle of all analytic judgements. Synthetic judgements are those in which the predicate lies outside of the subject, but is connected to it; this connection is said to be thought without identity.
Allison believes the second version is greatly superior. Analytic judgements are explicative, while synthetic judgements are ampliative. Synthetic judgements add to the subject concept a new predicate, while analytic judgements do not. In other words, synthetic judgements extend our knowledge, while analytic judgements clarify it. Actually, Kant claims that analytic judgements can extend our knowledge too; what the distinction is really about is the content of these judgements. Analytic judgements extend knowledge by “formal” means while synthetic judgements extend it by “material” means.
An analytic judgement has the general structure of: In this case, the concept b is contained inside the concept (a + b) as a mark. All analytic judgements are a priori, and since the truth of the judgement can be determined by analyzing the concept, no real object (x) need exist that satisfies these concepts. The judgement is purely “formal”. Kant’s conception of analyticity rests upon the notion that a concept is a set of marks (which are also concepts). For a concept to be contained means for it to be a mark, or mark of a mark, of a concept.
A synthetic judgement has the general structure of: In this case, the concept c is not contained within the concept (a + b), although they refer to and are thus connected by the same identical object x, the subject of the judgement. The material extension of our knowledge comes from providing a determination of x that is not already contained in the concept (a + b).
Synthetic judgements can only materially extend our knowledge if the concepts in it are related to intuition. Since judgements can only ever relate concepts to other representations (concepts or intuitions), and since only intuitions stand in immediate relation to objects, then any concept that is a real determination of an object must be related to an intuition. In fact, both the subject and the predicate concepts must be related to the intuition of the object for the connection of these concepts thought in the judgement to be objectively valid.
Problems for traditional metaphysics arise as soon as the analytic-synthetic distinction is made. Kant claims that the question of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements is the central problem of metaphysics because everything else in metaphysics hinges upon this question.
Philosophers have long drawn the distinction between a priori and a posteriori judgements, which differ in how they are known (grounded), or more specifically, whether experience grounds the judgement. The a priori is independent of experience because the criteria for it are necessity and universality, which cannot be grounded empirically. Conversely, yhe a posteriori grounded in experience.
The question then is, can synthetic judgements have non-empirical grounds? Can synthetic a priori judgements be made? How is a non-empirical, extra-conceptual and extra-logical ground of judgement possible? How could we extend our knowledge materially beyond a given concept, independently of any experience of the object that is thought through that concept?
Kant’s answer is that synthetic a priori judgements, predictably, require a priori (“pure”) representations. Kant says:
An “impure” synthetic a priori judgement is one that attempts to connect a pure concept predicate with an empirical concept subject, without any appeal to experience. But according to Kant, this type of judgement cannot have any objective validity. This is what is so disastrous about the analytic-synthetic distinction with respect to traditional metaphysics. Empirical intuitions are characterized by their particularity, and as such are incapable of expressing the universality and necessity that is thought in the pure concepts of a synthetic a priori judgement. Transcendentally realistic metaphysics are ungrounded because there are no intuitions that answer to the concepts in question!
I’d nod in appreciation if that was all from someone else’s summary.
I’d bow all the way to the ground if all that came out of your own head.
Not to brag....although I usually do......I have an excellent condition first edition, 1929 KempSmith CPR, with a perfectly preserved ex libris Cambridge University stamp on the fly leaf. Our neighbor down the road is an antique book dealer, who found it in a London hole-in-the-wall bookstore.
Obviously, and thankfully, very few people ever used it. Or if they did, they were properly respectful of it.
Anyway....just in passing.
Kant started the philosophy which says our conscious perceptions along with the world create perception proper (all our experiences). This is the essence of the modern views of philosophy, and psychology and physics have added to this understanding from their own individual fields
It is a powerful position, but, speaking of Heidegger, is it defensible?: Is there no grounding for dasein that is not dasein? That is, in t he phenomenological landscape of my Being, there is the reduction that allows for H's phenomenological ontology. The question is, What do we find in the world after the reduction has done its job entirely? Is there no residual "presence" (Derrida called it the transcendental signifier)?
I think phenomenological reduction leads to the impossible, while the impossible is "embedded" in the world. To use Heidegger's critical words against Husserl: An examination of a reduced world reveals that we all "walk on water"; that the foundation of Being is metaphysics that literally paradoxically manifest, literally manifest, and even mysteriously and palpably manifest.
I don't think you've contradicted Heidegger or that Heidegger contradicts Derrida and Husserl. What philosophy was saying since Kant about the union of consciousness with the world is now confirmed by the sciences
SP
True. But there is a ton of empirical evidence that justifies the claim no two physical objects can occupy the same space at the same time.
Wouldn’t you rather trust the standing evidence from experience, over the mere possibility of falsifying it?
There is empirical evidence for other cases indeed, but even the statement above that concludes from cases of others regarding my case is primarily logical. What if, for example, I get hit by a train even when I get off the rail because the train also derails towards me? Again, it is very unlikely that this will happen, but what if? For a sake of discussion, since every case is unique.
Okay this was a pretty easy example, but there are cases that are much harder to conclude from the experiences of others. What if Julius Caesar was never assassinated? In the absence of empirical evidence for this scenario, we can conclude based only on logic. From an empirical approach, this is a pure waste of time. And for historians it is indeed, but this is where the philosophy starts playing role. Just because we have no evidence, the answer is not yet random or arbitrary and the question is not meaningless or counterproductive either.
SP
Can’t argue with your logic.
“...Our foregoing method of reasoning will easily convince us, that there can be no demonstrative arguments to prove, that those instances of which we have had no experience, resemble those of which we have had experience. Thus not only our reason fails us in the discovery of the ultimate connexion of causes and effects, but even after experience has informed us of their constant conjunction, it is impossible for us to satisfy ourselves by our reason, why we should extend that experience beyond those particular instances, which have fallen under our observation.....”
(Hume, T.H.N., 1.,3., 6., 1., 1739)
And there you have it, from he who has been credited with saying it first. Or, maybe credited with saying it best.
Too bad he was wrong about reason failing us. But still, considering his time.....
The pure logic sometimes too abstract, not necessarily unswallowable, but the question is, whether legitimate argument can be built with no empirical observation. How are synthetic a priori truths possible? Kant's investigations in the Transcendental Logic lead him to conclude that the understanding and reason can only legitimately be applied to things as they appear phenomenally to us in experience.
On the other hand however you don't have to experience anything or conclude from experience of others to feel necessity of avoiding trouble. Just by using common sense. Or no any theory can be legitimate which is built on no empirical evidence.
SP
No, I don’t think that’s quite right.. The categories are stated as legitimately applied to objects, or possible objects, hence, objects of experience.
Kant went to great length to prove the possibility of a priori cognitions, the objects of which do not arise naturally from phenomena, re: mathematics and geometry. From that, it is the case pure reason and pure understanding, have no legitimacy in experience.
It is the principles those faculties employ, that determine the legitimacy of their application.
But....prove me wrong; I welcome it.
If this correct the same rules apply to such abstract concepts as spirituality, inner motivation, soul, or universal ethics. Kantian ethics.
SP
If the principles determine the applicability of certain faculties there must be rules for determining the conditions which meet the criteria of the application. So there are different rules. It’s like....the laws of thermodynamics don’t suffice in the domain covered by the laws of motion. We find that the categories set the rules for the applicability of the principle of, say, cause and effect, to empirical conditions. But spirituality, e.g., doesn’t have a cause as do empirical objects, so the categories do not suffice as rules for that cause/effect principle with respect to that abstract conception.
But we sometimes wish to know if there exists any possible object that belongs to abstract concepts. If we can construct the object, without contradicting extant conditions, it then falls under the purview of the categories, and if we cannot construct such an object that is ruled by the categories, because it does contradict extant conditions, it is impossible to prove an object that belongs to that conception actually exists, and thereby proves the reality of It. Which leaves us with logical validity of the conception, but without empirical existence of its object.
This was a long and dense chapter, though rewarding in its contents. I have separated the summary into sections to better organize and connect the arguments.
Summary:
Kant lists three exhaustive possibilities regarding the ontological status of space and time. They are the absolutistic, relational and critical positions, advocated by Newton, Leibniz and Kant, respectively. The chief concern of the Transcendental Aesthetic is to demonstrate the truth of the critical position (the transcendental ideality of space), and Kant goes about doing so by showing that space and time are a priori intuitions. Allison chooses to focus on Kant’s arguments for space, as they are generally in parallel with those of time.
The a priority of space
Kant says:
Space is a necessary a priori representation, which underlies all outer intuitions. We can never represent to ourselves the absence of space, though we can quite well think it as empty of objects. It must therefore be regarded as the condition of the possibility of appearances, and not as a determination dependent upon them. It is an a priori representation, which necessarily underlies outer experience.”
Allison believes that these are two separate arguments that aim to establish the apriority of space, but that the second argument is much stronger than the first.
The first argument for the apriority of space: distinguishing objects from themselves and the self
Kant is arguing here that objects are only apprehensible by humans as distinct both from themselves and from the self if they are represented in space; this representation cannot be empirical (a posteriori, it cannot precede that which it makes possible), so it must be a priori.
This argument contains two presuppositions: that the representation of space is necessary in order for humans to refer to sensations external to themselves, and that it is also needed for humans to apprehend objects as external to each other. By the term “outer sense”, Kant means a sense through which one can become perceptually aware of objects as distinct from oneself; and by the term “inner sense”, he means a sense through which one can become perceptually aware of oneself and one’s states. Space as the condition of outer sense is not taken to be a logical necessity. Kant is not stating a tautology when he claims that space is the conditions for the possibility of outer sense, because space is not the only conceivable way of doing so - but it is this way for humans.
Similarly, when Kant says that space is the condition for the possibility of distinguishing objects from one another, he is not making a tautology. For humans to distinguish objects, these objects need to not only be qualitatively different but also numerically different; they need to reside in different places in space. But it need not be the case there are no other forms of distinguishing objects from one another that are nonspatial. Spatiality is the means in which humans distinguish objects from one another; these are not identical!
Some have objected by arguing that Kant ignores the possibility that space is an empirical representation which is mutually conditioned by other empirical representations; in other words, space could be derived as an abstraction from a complete concept of it and other empirical representations. But this misses the thrust of Kant’s argument: it is not merely that we cannot have representations of things without the representation of space, but that space operates as the underlying means in which these representations are apprehended. Furthermore, it is also the case that the awareness of the distinctness of objects from one another is a condition for the representation of space, for that is putting the cart before the horse. Space must not simply be concurrent, but also prior, to the representation of objects.
The second argument for the apriority of space: conceiving space as empty of objects
In the second argument, Kant says that since we can conceive of space as empty of objects, but that we cannot conceive of objects without space, it must be that space be considered as a condition for the appearances of these objects, and not simply a determination of them. Space is prior to the apprehension of distinct objects, and functions as a condition of doing so. And again, it is not a logical condition, nor is it a psychological condition (as in, it just happens to be the case that humans are unable to remove space from appearances); it is an epistemic condition for the possibility of representing distinct objects. It is through representing appearances as spatial that we represent them as “outer” - as distinct from ourselves (and also from each other). If space were to be removed, there would be no sensibility.
Space as an intuition
Kant’s arguments for the a priority of space have been covered. Allison then takes on Kant’s arguments for space as an intuition. There are two arguments, the second of which was completely re-done in another version. Allison focuses on the second of the second argument.
The first argument for space as an intuition: space is a totum analyticum; so it is not a concept
The first intuition argument assumes the exhaustive nature of the concept-intuition distinction, and goes about demonstrating that space cannot be a concept, and so consequently it must be an intuition. Kant claims that we can only ever represent to ourselves one space, which all places are parts of. However, space is not just a totality, or an aggregate of places. The parts of a totality are logically prior to the whole; this is the case in general for the marks of a concept. But the parts of space are only given in and through a single unified space. In other words, space is a totum analyticum. Since the parts do not precede the whole, as is the case with concepts, this means that space must be an intuition.
The second argument for space as an intuition: space has infinite intension; so it is not a concept
The second intuition argument assumes that space is represented as an infinite given magnitude and takes this to be conclusive that it is an intuition. In the process of explaining the second version of this argument (the first is quickly dismissed), Kant also further explains the differences between concepts and intuitions.
A concept has a complex logical form that involves both extension and intension. Extensionally, every concept has other concepts under it, arranged hierarchically in terms of generality, with each lower species of concept introducing new differences. Intensionally, every concept contains other concepts within it as component parts; this is the inverse as extension, as the lower species of concepts with greater differentia contain the higher concepts within themselves.
Compare this with an intuition, which is a representation of an individual. All parts of an intuition are contained within and presuppose the whole. Intuitions are divided by limitation, not differentia. Recall how this is also how a totum analyticum is structured.
The second argument uses these structures to illustrate how concepts and intuitions involve infinity. Concepts handle infinity with respect to its extension; there can be an indefinite number of concepts falling underneath it. Intuitions handle infinity with respect to intention; they can have an infinite number of parts within it, coexisting. Allison says that concepts cannot have infinite intension because such an infinite concept could not be grasped by the human mind. And space is given as an infinite collection of parts, just as an intuition is.
If this is the case though, does this contradict what Kant has to say in the Antinomies about the infinity of the world in space and time? Allison thinks there are different notions of infinity at play here. Space is always represented as being bounded by more of the same; there is a limitless progression of an all-encompassing space. This part of the text was a bit obscure, but if I am understanding correctly, the key point here is that space (and time) are tota analytica, but a world-totality is a totum syntheticum; space is divided into parts, while a world-totality is build up from its parts.
Given-ness, and the different species of intuition
Allison moves on to Kant’s notion of “given-ness”, as when Kant claims that “space is represented as an infinite given magnitude.” Kant uses the term “pure manifold” to describe the preconceptual framework that guides and limits human cognition. Space is never perceived as limitless, but rather spatial regions are perceived under the “pre-intuition” that they are parts of a limitless space. As an example, Allison quotes Schulze who illustrates how, in order to draw a line from one point to another, there must already be a space in which to draw it. It is this space that Kant calls a pure manifold.
In a very dense series of paragraphs, Allison explains how there are three different senses of the term “pure intuition”. There is a “formal intuition”, which is a determinate (conceptualized) pure intuition; there is also a “form of intuition”, which is an indeterminate (unconceptualized) pure intuition. The latter can either be the manner of intuiting, or it can be the essential structure (form) of that which is intuited.
So there is a form of the intuited, a form of intuiting and a formal intuition. A given, infinite, single and all-inclusive space which contains within it the manifold of spaces cannot be simply the capacity to intuit spatially, nor can it be a formal intuition (as it is not represented as an object); it must be the form of the intuited. Kant says:
A crucial point raised by Allison is that a formal intuition (a determinate pure intuition of universal and necessary features of objects qua intuited) is a hybrid that requires both the form of intuition and a concept by means of which this form is determined.
Geometry and Incongruent Parts
Kant’s discussion of geometry is often taken to be the primary argument for the transcendental ideality of space, but Allison believes this is false. The discussion is brief, for nothing in Allison’s argument depends on this aspect of Kant’s thought. Geometry is taken to be a body of synthetic a priori propositions; from this, Kant concludes that this can only be explained if the representation of space is an a priori intuition, and therefore that space itself is transcendentally ideal and the form of outer sense.
Two points are raised by Allison. One, that the transcendental ideality of space is a necessary but not sufficient condition of geometry being a synthetic a priori science; in which case, if the latter is false, the former need not be; and two, the argument gets its to conclusion only by means of the a priori and intuitive nature of the representation of space; so if this can be established by other means (such as the arguments made earlier in this chapter), the argument from geometry can be bypassed. The most the geometry argument can prove is that the representation of space is an a priori intuition; that space itself is transcendentally ideal must be proven in other ways.
The “paradox of incongruent counterparts” is roughly that there are objects which are qualitatively identical but yet cannot be substituted for one another because they are different in their external relations, such as spherical triangles. I confess that I read this particular section no less than five times and I still don’t fully understand it. Regardless, Allison believes it is not a strong argument for Kant’s position.
Ontological conclusions
It is towards the end of the chapter that Allison moves to the overall argument Kant makes for the transcendental ideality of space. Before, it was focused on the nature of the representation of space (as an a priori intuition), but now it shifts to the ontological status of space itself (given that the representation of space is an a priori intuition). Kant draws two conclusions, and then claims that space is empirically real and transcendentally ideal.
The first ontological conclusion entailed from the representation of space as an a priori intuition: space is not a property of things in themselves
The first conclusion is that space does not represent any property of things in themselves (in the transcendental sense), nor in their relations to one another. This means that the representation of space, which was established to be an a priori intuition, does not contain any properties that can be predicated of things when they are considered apart from the subjective conditions of human intuition. Kant asserts (though without any justification) that no determination of an object can be intuited prior to the existence of this object and so therefore none can be intuited a priori.
The second ontological conclusion entailed from the representation of space as an a priori intuition: space is a condition of sensibility
Kant’s second conclusion is that space is nothing but the form of all appearances of outer sense; it is the subjective condition of sensibility under which outer intuition is possible for humans.
The transcendental ideality of space
From these two conclusions, Kant draws the third conclusion of the transcendental ideality of space:
From this it can be garnered that Kant believes that spatial predicates are limited to appearances, the objects of sensibility, and cannot be applied to the things in themselves. The empirical reality of space comes from that notion that these predicates are applicable to these outer appearances, and so can be considered objectively real in the empirical sense. The empirical reality thesis is easy to make, but the transcendental ideality thesis is more difficult. Allison says that it is hard to find such an argument, but he endeavors to show that the transcendental ideality of space can be derived from the a priori and intuitive nature of its representation.
A priori intuitions are possible only if they are forms of sensibility and thus transcendentally ideal
To start, Allison points out that since concepts cannot be related immediately to objects, they can be formed independently of any experience of them. We can even think of concepts to which no object corresponds to, which is why we can think (but not know) the thing-in-itself. An intuition, on the other hand, is immediately related to the object in which it (re)presents to the mind. The problem of an a priori intuition is to explain how it is possible for an intuition to have nonempirical content, to not have content derived from the affections of an object? This would be impossible if the intuition presented things as they are in themselves, and not just for a priori intuitions but for empirical intuitions as well. But Kant is focused on a priori intuitions; by rejecting the aforementioned notion that a priori intuitions can have nonempirical content corresponding to things-in-themselves, it stands that these intuitions must contain nothing but the form of sensibility which predates all the actual empirical intuitions given from the affections of objects. An a priori intuition is possible if and only iff it presents to the mind a form of its own sensibility.
Allison says there are two steps to the overall argument: that an a priori intuition is possible if it contains a form of sensibility, and that such an intuition is possible only if it does this.
The first component of the argument for the transcendental ideality of space: an a priori intuition is possible if it contains a form of sensibility
To analyze the first component, Allison defines a few terms, as what Kant means by “form of sensibility” is not straightforward. “Appearance” is an ontologically neutral term, which refers to an object that is given in experience (contrasted with those that are merely conceived). “Form” means condition”, and “matter” means that which is conditioned by a form. A “form of appearance” is a feature of an appearance in virtue of which its elements are related to one another; the representation of space functions as a form in this sense.
Recall that “form of intuition” can refer to either the formal structure of intuited objects, or the mode in which these objects are intuited. The former sense is equivalent to a form of appearance, but the latter is inherently subjective and related to the mind’s receptive capacity.
“Form of sensibility” can also be taken in two ways, both having references to mind. It can either be a form of sensibly intuiting (sometimes called a form of receptivity), or a form of objects qua sensibly intuited. Allison refers to these as forms of sensibility(1) and forms of sensibility(2). In claiming that a form of appearances (intuited objects) is a form of sensibility(2), Kant is also claiming that it pertains to these objects in virtue of the mind’s form of sensibility(1). Thus the first step in Kant’s overall argument here is saying that, if an intuition is a form of sensibility(2), then this is due to the form of sensibility(1), which in turn entails that the intuition must be both a priori (as it is necessary and universal for all subjects with the same form of sensibility(1)) and pure (as its source is not in any sensible data). Therefore, if we assume that the representation of space is a form of sensibility(2), then it is a pure a priori intuition.
The second component of the argument for the transcendental ideality of space: an a priori intuition is possible only if it contains a form of sensibility
The second step is more complicated than the first. Broadly construed, the only other alternatives for the possibility of an a priori intuition are the Newtonian and Leibnizian positions. Kant’s argument seems actually mostly compatible with the Newtonian absolutist view of space. Indeed, why can’t space (and time) be transcendentally real and the form of experience of transcendentally real things rather than just mere appearance? Yet Kant explicitly rejects the Newtonian view when he says that “space does not represent any property of things in themselves,” and any a priori intuition of a thing in itself.
Kant believes that the Newtonian theory is incapable of accounting for the possibility that the representation of space functions as a form of human experience; in other words, taking space to be an ontological condition of objects is incompatible with it being an epistemic condition of them. Excluding the Kantian position that space is a form of sensibility, there are two alternatives: that we have an innate idea of space that exists in a “pre-established harmony” with the real space, or that the idea of space is derived from the experience of real space. The first alternative is ad hoc, while the second denies that space can function as a condition of the possibility of the experience of objects. There is a contradiction involved with the notion that the representation of a condition can have its source in that which is conditioned.
Ultimately, the question of how an a priori intuition is possible is actually equivalent to the question of how the representation of space can function as a condition of sensibility. Therefore, everything rests on Kant’s claim that the representation of space functions as a form of human experience.
The “neglected alternative”: could space be both a form of sensibility and a thing-in-itself?
But might it be the case that space is a form of human sensibility but that it is also a corresponding feature of things-in-themselves? How can Kant hold that things-in-themselves are unknowable, but simultaneously hold that they are not spatial? This is known as the “neglected alternative”, which has been assumed to have been ignored by Kant. Of course, the Antinomies could be used to justify Kant’s position, though as we have seen they are not very strong.
Allison notes, however, that while space as a form of sensibility(2) is inherently subjective and so thus the numerical identity of this form with a real space is impossible, qualitative similarity is also empty of any meaning. It is not as the “colored spectacles” analogy claims it to be, where space is akin to pink-colored glasses in a world that happens to also be pink in-itself. If Kant is correct when he says that space is a form of sensibility, then spatiality simply is not a predicate that one can meaningfully apply to things-in-themselves.
Having read the whole thread, I wanted to ask what you thought of the argument itself of space and time being intuitions. Kant says "matter's motion or rest merely in relation to the mode of representation or modality, and *thus* to appearance of the outer sense, is called phenomenology." He also talks of the "material *meaning*" of nature. That we don't sense the world as it is in itseld is the heart of his philosophy. I oscillate between materialism and Kantianism and sometimes hold both at once (Hegelianism), but I hesitate to say that Kant proved anything positive in these regards. Space and time are needed for the world as legs are needed for a table, yet maybe the table always existed as a whole. And maybe we do see things in themselves in some sense although we add space and time to them
I am sort of deliberately keeping myself in the dark for the time being as to not spoil the surprise, but certainly there are counter-arguments to Allison's conception of Kant, and I am becoming more and more curious about them. I am particularly interested in reading more about speculative realism. I read part of Meillassoux' After Finitude and some Graham Harman correlationist stuff a few years back when I was wet behind the ears. I didn't fully understand all of it, but one point stuck with me (and I won't be able to give it justice here): that if transcendental idealism is true, then philosophers ought to be telling scientists (geologists, cosmologists, paleontologists) that what they profess to study never really actually happened as they say it did. @schopenhauer1 gives a quote earlier in this thread from Schopenhauer that is relevant to this issue.
Citation? I ask because you’ve indicated the statement is a quote, but I can’t find it in any of my translations. Not saying it isn’t in somebody’s, somewhere, but just that I’d like to view the context.
Thanks.
It's actually from Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786). I'm reading Michael Friedman's book on it right now.
The footnotes are indicating that is from the preface. I also added the "material meaning" quote (which I think is also from the preface) in showing that Kant is speaking of the world in a brand new way that was revolutionary from how people spoke of it prior to him. This is phenomenology
Can you explain why Kant makes this claim? What is empirical idealism and why would transcendental realism entail it? Is empirical idealism the proposed "God's eye view"?
Quoting darthbarracuda
What is the justification for there being a confusion? I can imagine that naivie/direct realists would deny there was one, and say that of course appearances are how things are, taking into account the necessary details of the environment (lighting conditions or what not), and the limits of our sensory organs.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I've always wondered why there is a leap to saying the objects cannot have an existence as represented by us, such as extension in space and time. If the objects have an independent existence, and this existence is related somehow to human sensibility, then why can't that be some form of spacetime?
I didn’t look there, but found it since.
Thanks.
I take empirical idealism to mean that we are only acquainted with the private data of our own minds. There is no reference to inter-subjectivity. Transcendental realism entails empirical idealism because it doesn't give any good explanation as to how we possess any knowledge at all. As I understand it, this basically means the our representations could be arbitrary and have absolutely no ground. Kant introduces a priori forms and concepts and by doing so gives grounding to knowledge, not of the thing-in-itself but of a shared, intersubjective world of experience.
I think Allison has more to say about empirical idealism later in the book. I don't know if I completely understand it either.
The theocentric "God's eye view" is the transcendental realist idea of a mind that is an infinitely-amplified version of our own mind, which is able to perceive objects as they "really are" in space and time. It's the difference between seeing only part of the picture and seeing all of the picture.
Quoting Marchesk
It's not just secondary-like properties that could be smoothed out under better conditions for perception, or if you possessed that God's eye point of view. It's more about there being nothing in common between the thing in itself and an appearance as it appears in space and time. Space and time are taken to be meaningful only when predicated on appearances; they are meaningless when applied to the thing in itself.
Quoting Marchesk
Also here I believe Allison devotes a chapter to discussing how we are to make sense of the notion of a transcendental thing in itself. For now I will say that, according to Kant, it is a condition of human sensibility to view objects as distinguished from themselves and the self as existing in space. Perhaps it is the case that we cannot help but imagine the thing in itself as existing in space, but all that points to is the way in which human sensibility is and not the way the thing in itself is.
So one can see this as a response to Humean skepticism. Hume said that causality is not given to us in perception, but rather is a habit of mind. Kant's response would be that causality is one of the necessary grounds of knowledge. We can't say whether the things in themselves are causal, but the things in experience are structured that way. Thus causality, like space and time, is an empirical necessity.
The point of Kant's critique of Hume is that in the former's position does not allow matter to suddenly act bizzare while for Hume this could happen at any time. Kant has his own mind as a guarantee for the sanity of existence
Kent's assumption is that the thing in itself will confirm to the mind
Empirical idealism, to me, sounds like a contradictory concept. Empirical means from out in the material world, and idealism means from within mind. But maybe that is what Kant wanted to say. Perception requires the both, i.e. data from the external world which enters the mind of the perceiver.
Another contradiction in the CPR seems, the concept of space. Space is normally regarded as part of the external world, but in Kant, space is a priori schema in mind. It is presupposed for all perception of the objects in the material world. NKS says that space is being added when perception occurs. How can there be two types of space? One in the material world and one in the mind of perception, although they are different kinds. Could we not just say, there is just one type of space, and it is the one in the material world?
Not at all. Empiricism is a claim about the source of knowledge as primarily sensory (as distinct from say, first principles a la Descartes). It does not necessarily entail the existence of a 'material world'. Only that, whatever there 'is' - ideal or otherwise - we come to know it though the experience of our senses. It is about the relation between a knowing being, and that which is to be known, and not the relata themselves. In the SEP for example:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/#Empi
--
Also, great thread.
Great point.
I used to think in terms of, how can sense experience ever happen without the material world? It will be just empty space we will be facing and staring. Shouldn't empiricism suppose the existence of the external world, and base it as the source of the all sensory data? But you are right on the points. I will read the link article, and mull it over. Thanks.
If you say, the origin of knowledge is the sensory organs, then it would be like saying, the origin of photographic images are the lens of cameras, which may sounds not wrong, but not meaningful either.
The photographic images are the copy the objects in the external world, and the external world's objects are the origin of the images sounds correct.
And if you say, the external world does not exist, because without the sensory organs we cannot perceive anything or all we get is just illusion, then you are a sceptic. If you say, the external world do exist regardless of the sensory organs and all the illusions we get, then you are a realist. But in both occasions, you are an empiricist.
Just to be clear, to say that the 'origin of knowledge' is the sensory organs, is to distinguish it from other possible ways of coming to know things (specifically, again, rationalism). To use your metaphor, it's to say that the origin of photos are cameras and not tape recorders (the sensory, and not the intellect). This is why it is meaningful. In each case it's the relation between the knowing subject and what is to be known that is at stake. If you're talking about the relata - as you are in your response - you've missed the point. Empiricism answers the question of how we come to know the world, not what the world is. It is an issue of epistemology, not ontology.
The human cognitive system is inherently logical, therefore, for any this, the negation of it is given immediately in that. Kant grounds the human system as necessarily representational, the external part by means of the a priori architecture of space and time, whereas the negation of it, in the form of transcendental realism, grounds the human system as non-representational, insofar as the object and its appearance are the same thing, hence not conditioned by intuitions of space and time, those conceived as belonging to the objects in themselves.
An empirical idealist, then, is merely the transcendental realist who labors under the illusion of explaining the existence of a thing, conditioned only by two necessarily infinite, content-less conceptions, a contradiction. In short, the one properly institutes space and time as necessary conditions for the reality of objects, while the other improperly institutes space and time as necessary properties in the existence of objects. As paraphrased from A491/B519.
——————
On the presumed dual nature of space and time:
The “objective validity/empirical reality” of space and time are noted. However, transcendental ideality of space and time, insofar as they are both mediate concepts given from understanding but which can only be represented by the category “Quantity”, re: “an infinite given magnitude” and not any real object, and, they are immediate intuitions a priori insofar as they are presupposed in the affect upon a subject that perceives, thereby establishing the rules for the possibility of synthetic a priori cognitions, which in turn, is the possibility of experience itself. As paraphrased from “...SS 3: Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Space....”, B41.
The “objective validity/empirical reality” regards the use of intuitions as conditions; the transcendental ideality regards the derivation of them from pure reason alone.
—————
In Kant.....
.....the origin of knowledge is not perception; it is understanding. That which is before the synthesis of intuition to conception, is not in our awareness, thus does not ground knowledge, which is always a conscious judgement with respect to the possible logical certainty of those relations. As well, the synthesis of conceptions to each other, involving no intuitions, therefore no perceptions at all, and of which we are perfectly aware as a conscious judgement with apodeitic logical certainty, insofar as those relations are of our own construction, is the source of a priori knowledge.
.....empiricism is nothing but one of only two possible modes of thought, the other being a priori. All empiricism does, is legislate, and thus authorize, one type of cognition. The complementary nature of human cognition demands an empirical aspect, otherwise the a priori aspect, while undeniable for its internal construction, cannot be relieved of its illusory extension on the one hand, and is entirely insufficient for explaining affects on sensibility, on the other.
.....the thing-in-itself can never conform to the mind; that is precisely what it cannot do. If it did, or if it could, the entire Kantian transcendental treatise drops headlong into the metaphysical crapper. It may stand in such relation in other doctrines, but not in this one.
Anyway.....just sayin’.
It's accurate
I wondered too why he says basis instead of base. "Basis" is used several times so far and I'm on pg 70. But what I think it means is that we project space unto the thing-in-itself and time is the base of our internal life. So we have our projection of space out there and our inner sense and find that time enters space through our interaction with the world
What does "as it is in itself" add to the thing-in-itself? The idea is the world independent of human cognition and perception. Whatever it is that gives rise to our existence and sensory impressions.
The world absent appearance, or the supersensible. Does, "as it is in itself", emphasize or add additional qualifications to that?
It's called Construction of Nature. It's not well written, lucid, and interesting that I can't recommend it enough
It doesn't seem on a Kantian view that one can have such knowledge. All knowledge is given as things appear to us, according to the categories of thought which structure appearances. Anything else is beyond knowledge.
It may be in White, but it is so in NKS, 1929, reading along with Benno Erdmann, circa 1889, found in a translator’s footnote, at A491/B519.
Does God belong to the thing-in-itself in Kant? Maybe yes maybe not. What type of objects actually are classed / regarded as the thing-in-itself? Or is the thing-in-itself supposed to be a concept of its own?
It’s only been four days since.......
The thing-in-itself is a real, physical, space/time thing,
— Mww
Any examples of them?
— Corvus
Yeah......every single thing there ever was or ever will be. All things are external to us, so exists in its own right. Exists as itself. Exists in-itself.
.......so if god is a space/time thing external to us, existing in its own right, then god is a thing-in-itself too, as far as we’re concerned. If not a thing, all god is, is an idea, an object of reason, the proverbial transcendental object. As far as we’re concerned.
On the other note, if the expression “god” is present as representation, than the conception from which it is given is necessarily present as understanding. The conception is an internal comprehension of a certain relation, “god” merely the expression of it.
Thanks for reconfirmation. It sounds new and fresh concepts no matter how many times I go over them :D
Just to be clear, Kant understands us to be organisms with sensory organs and nervous systems which interact with the environment, and evolved from common ancestors, as entirely empirical. The reality of the world beyond the empirical appearance is something we can't know. Thus Meillassoux critique that correlationism means the fossils of our ancestors only tell us what's empirically the case, not what actually happened, since we can't know whether we evolved or there was a big bang. We can only know what appears to us as structured by our reason.
Being a biological organism, there being a time before humans and a cosmos billions of light years beyond humans are all structured knowledge of the space and time categories of thought.
This chapter was short but dense. I understand the overall argument, but I'm not sure if I understand a few of the details. I have included a few questions afterwards.
Also, I'm glad to see this thread has started getting more traction. Good discussions!
Summary:
The sensible conditions of human knowledge (the a priori intuitions of space and time) were covered in the previous chapter; this chapter focuses on the intellectual conditions of human knowledge, otherwise called the pure concepts of the understanding, or categories. Kant claims to have made a major advance over Aristotle, because he thinks that his catalog is not only complete, but that it can be demonstrated as being so. Kant goes about deriving the catalog from his analysis of the nature of judgement. His argument moves from the forms of general logic to the pure concepts of understanding.
Somewhat confusingly, “pure” does not indicate a priority with concepts as it does with intuitions. There are in fact a priori concepts which express formal conditions of intuition, which are the concern of mathematics. But a pure concept is really just a shortened version of a pure concept of understanding; “pure” in this case refers to its origin (“seat”) in the nature of human knowledge as that which expresses a fundamental law of the understanding, and which has no reference to the manifold of intuition.
Why pure concepts must be presupposed as necessary intellectual conditions of judgement: without pure concepts, there would not be any concepts at all.
Recall that the essential act of thought is judgement, and the function of judgement is to provide determinate representations (synthesis). The task of judgement is to provide a unification of representations under a concept; every judgement is a conceptualization, and vice versa.
Thus every judgement requires there be some pre-given concepts. So there must be some presupposed concepts that cannot be regarded as products of prior judgements; these are the pure concepts of understanding. These pure concepts are second-order rules for the generation of other rules (concepts). Without these concepts, there would be no concepts at all.
The relationship between the pure concepts and the logical forms
Kant correlates the pure concepts of understanding with the “forms of judgement”, by which he means the various ways in which the representational unity derived from a judgement is possible. Each form is also called a “logical function” or a “moment of thought”, and are grouped under four sets. At least one function from each set must be used in each judgement. Allison does not include an explicit table of the forms of judgement, nor of the pure concepts of understanding, so I have reproduced them below from my copy of the Critique:
Forms of judgement:
Pure concepts of the understanding:
The table of logical functions is taken by Kant to yield the table of pure concepts. Since every judgement is a conceptualization, then each of the logical forms of judgement has its own particular way of conceptualizing representations. In order to judge under a logical form, one must already possess a corresponding concept. At least one logical function from each set must be used in every judgement.
Demonstrating the correlation between the tables
Allison continues on to what he considers to be Kant’s explicit argument for the correlation between the table of logical functions of judgement and the table of pure concepts of understanding. Kant says:
By “transcendental content”, Kant means the form of the thought of an object in general. To introduce transcendental content into representations is to relate them to an object. A pure concept is that under which the objective validity of the synthesis of a judgement is thought; in other words, it is a rule that dictates how an object can be thought if it is to be determined by a judgement of a logical form.
For instance, the pure concept of substance (the conceptual correlate of the categorical logical form) dictates that the subject of a categorical judgement be conceived as a bearer of properties, and not a predicate of something else; that is to say, the subject is necessarily considered as if it were a substance (the ontological status of the pure concept of substance arises from its hypostatization; it need not be the case that this hypostatization is actually real for the concept to perform its function).
Both general and transcendental logic involve this same function of judgement, but at different “levels”; this is what allows Kant to derive the pure concepts (used at the transcendental level) from the logical functions (used at the general level). It is not the case of there being two distinct activities (analysis:general logic, synthesis: transcendental logic) of two separate faculties (the understanding and the imagination); it is rather a single activity (synthesis) of a single faculty (the understanding), operating at two distinct levels (general and transcendental).
Therefore, if we assume that the understanding has such a transcendental function (which has not been established yet), and that it uses this function in the same way in which it judges, then the logical functions that it uses when it unites concepts in a judgement are also the forms it uses to unite the intuitive manifold when determining an object for judgement. The pure concepts of understanding are nothing more than the logical functions of judgement, when applied to the manifold of intuition.
Shortcomings of Kant’s argument
Despite his defense of it in general, Allison does not forget aspects of Kant’s argument that are weak. He believes that Kant’s defense of the correlation of the disjunctive function with the pure concept of community is a failure. The disjunctive function is only understood in the sense of an exclusive disjunction, but the pure concept of community is understood as reciprocal connection; there is some degree of similarity in the sense that they both involve the coordination of elements in some way or another, but it’s not enough to actually show that the concept of community is derived from the disjunctive function.
The other shortcoming Allison notes is Kant’s claim that he has supplied a complete table of categories by deriving it from the logical functions of judgement. Even if we ignore the preceding issue of the disjunctive:community correlation, there still stands the issue of whether the table of logical functions of judgement is complete itself. Kant never supplies any argument demonstrating that this is the case. Why indeed are these forms of judgement the only ones? And if there are more logical functions, then there would also be more pure concepts, in which case Kant would be incorrect to state that his table of categories is complete.
Regardless of these two failings, Allison believes that the key takeaway is that Kant demonstrates that judgement requires a set of categorial a priori concepts, which he calls the pure concepts of understanding.
Questions:
Let me try:
1) understanding is the categories in the mind while reason-intellect-judgment is the higher free human function that operates to connect all the "given" forms it finds in itself
2) representation is either imagination (pictures in the head) or the phenomena of the world
3) this is because the categories are said to be complete and humanity is made for activity
4) this question throws me but judgment synthesizes all of the work of understanding into free thought and action
......are given their ground beginning with A50/B74, in which are found definitions, systemic conditions, and constituent relations. A few pages that set the stage for the morass that follows.
Kant has a wonderful note in the preface to the first edition of the Critique:
Reading Kant himself will increase your knowledge
All rational cognition is, again, based either on conceptions, or on the construction of conceptions. The former is termed philosophical, the latter mathematical. A cognition may be objectively philosophical and subjectively historical—as is the case with the majority of scholars and those who cannot look beyond the limits of their system, and who remain in a state of pupilage all their lives. (...)
Of all the a priori sciences of reason, therefore, mathematics alone can be learned. Philosophy—unless it be in an historical manner—cannot be learned; we can at most learn to philosophize....”
(A836-7/B864-5)
Just as a note, I think Schopenhauer did a great job dismantling Kant's 12 categories. He was inspired by the transcendental idealism but did not buy all aspects.
Here's only SOME of the many critiques Schop had of Kant (as sourced from Wikipedia). I bolded the m most relevant to this particular discussion. You can do whole threads on each critique alone!
Quoting Critique of Kantian Philosophy Wikipedia Article[/b]
Why would Schopenhauer say only causality is a category of the mind. Kant admitted that the self is will ("free will) and since such is apart from space and time the relationship to the world from it is paradoxical
From B3:
“....whether there exists a knowledge altogether independent of experience, and even of all sensuous impressions? But the expression, "a priori," is not as yet definite enough adequately to indicate the whole meaning of the question above started. For, in speaking of knowledge which has its sources in experience, we are wont to say, that this or that may be known a priori, because we do not derive this knowledge immediately from experience, but from a general rule, which, however, we have itself borrowed from experience**. (...) By the term "knowledge a priori," therefore, we shall in the sequel understand, not such as is independent of this or that kind of experience, but such as is absolutely so of all experience. (...) Knowledge a priori is either pure or impure**. Pure knowledge a priori is that with which no empirical element is mixed up....”
**impure a priori knowledge, also considered as either intuition, metaphysically, or memory, psychologically.
** in Guyer and Meiklejohn, omitted in Kemp Smith.
Kant is merely distancing the knowledge we’ve already acquired through experience, from knowledge not given from any experience whatsoever. Impure a priori knowledge is like....seen one fireworks display, seen ‘em all kinda thing. Regardless of relative degree, all are still just fireworks displays. Pure a priori knowledge, because it is being herein defined as absent any experience, must then be determined by something other than sensibility. And the only thing remaining after eliminating sensibility, is thought. Therefore, the theoretical ground is laid for deriving the possibility of pure a priori knowledge from understanding alone, which is the faculty of thought.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Two counter arguments:
First, If possible experience was sufficient for empirical knowledge, how would we tell the difference between what we might know, and what we do know? It is, at the end, contradictory to ascribe certainty on the one hand, and ascribe the same certainty to a mere possibility on the other.
Second, If it is true the only means for empirical knowledge is from experience, then the negation of it must also be true, insofar as without experience there is no empirical knowledge. The proposition is true, therefore the negation is also true.
Best to remember.....the entire treatise is concerned with the question stated above, proving the possibility, validity and the source of the principles which determine the legitimate boundaries of human reason.
Sensation arises from the matter of objects and is the initiation of the process by which the system is going to determine how the object is to be known; intuitions are the forms to which the matter attains, whatever that objects may be. Thus it is, sensation is given from physicality, intuition is given from rationality, and therein is the preliminary theoretical ground for the Kantian transcendental idealist science of combining the empiricism of Hume, et al with the rationalism of Descartes et al. Which, from his earliest critical career, was to be his primary philosophical mandate. “Dogmatic slumbers” and all that.
What more is there to intuition than sensation, depends on one’s understanding of the matter/form duality. If one doesn’t grant such a thing, there is no more, at least in the Kantian sense; if one does grant the duality, what more is there, is already given, from the Kantian sense.
The matter of objects can only affect the human system five ways, for there are, of course, only five modes of perception. But any mode of perception gives a representation, which are themselves only distinguishable by the mode in which they are received into the system. Representation of sound from the auditory apparatus is different from the representation of touch from the tactile apparatus, but to the system, all are merely representative of an object’s particular affect, and something more is absolutely required before any determination is possible as to what the object is.
“....Without the sensuous faculty no object would be given to us, and without the understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind. Hence it is as necessary for the mind to make its conceptions sensuous (that is, to join to them the object in intuition), as to make its intuitions intelligible (that is, to bring them under conceptions). Neither of these faculties can exchange its proper function. Understanding cannot intuite, and the sensuous faculty cannot think. In no other way than from the united operation of both, can knowledge arise. But no one ought, on this account, to overlook the difference of the elements contributed by each; we have rather great reason carefully to separate and distinguish them. We therefore distinguish the science of the laws of sensibility, that is, aesthetic, from the science of the laws of the understanding, that is, logic....”
(A51/B75)
And here it is that Kant exhibits his admitted dualist metaphysical nature, and the ground for a completely dualistic methodology for human knowledge in general. No escape from it, and those making the attempt otherwise only “...have recourse to pitiful sophisms or confess their ignorance...”
The way in which pure a priori knowledge is apodeitic is becaiuse it arises from the understanding alone, an internal cognitive faculty, thereby granting sufficient causality for certainty, in that there is no other influence on it. That which arises from itself, cannot be other than it is, which holds the same value as truth, but truth restricted to the very domain from which it is given. Now “not other than it is” may eventually be shown to be false, but at the originating time of it, the certainty is not questionable, and if eventually shown to be false, it cannot be of the same domain from which it originated, for in such case, there is an outside influence. It is clear from this stipulation, the only possible pure a priori knowledge is in the form of principles, or the laws derivable from them, either with respect to the physical domain, which is properly science, “...the science of what is...”, or with respect to the metaphysical domain, which is properly morality, “...the science of what ought to be...”. Again, a furtherance of the intrinsic Kantian epistemological dualism.
Universality and necessity are principles that cannot apply to anything empirical, because they are overturned by, subsumed under, the more powerful Principle of Induction, which makes explicit experience is always contingent: undeniable observational proof that what’s true today may not be true tomorrow, re: determinations of the nature of the observable Universe. What reason seeks, on the other hand, is that which is never contingent, or, which is the same thing, never self-contradictory, itself just conventional speech for seeking the unconditioned, the ideal, the irreducible. The question then becomes....does reason ever reach that state of affairs, and the Kantian speculative metaphysics proves it does not, and it cannot.
Given what reason cannot do, it remains to be determined what reason can do, the controlling condition being the LNC, which immediately suggests the entire human cognitive system is inherently logical. This, in turn, makes it impossible to demonstrate how logic itself comes about, but instead, must simply be granted as being the case. Otherwise, no theoretical sciences of any kind that are predicated on logical propositions can facilitate knowledge, which means we can never claim knowledge of anything at all.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Truth here is irrelevant. Synthetical propositions denote nothing but the relation of conceptions to each other, with no judgement as to the truth of the proposition being enabled. Again...dualism, in that synthetical is only to differentiate a kind of relation of conceptions from its complement, the analytical. It is identity, not truth, which makes these relational determinations. Analytical propositions are those in which the conceptions hold similar identities, synthetical propositions are those in which identity does not hold. Identity herein meant to indicate only that the conception in the predicate of a proposition can be found in the subject of that same proposition. In synthetical propositions, then, the conception in the predicate cannot be found in the subject.
From that it follows that while 7 + 5 = 12 is synthetical, in that neither of the numbers to the left, in and of themselves, can give the number on the right.....
“....The conception of twelve is by no means obtained by merely cogitating the union of seven and five; and we may analyse our conception of such a possible sum as long as we will, still we shall never discover in it the notion of twelve. We must go beyond these conceptions, and have recourse to an intuition which corresponds to one of the two—our five fingers, for example, or like Segner in his Arithmetic five points, and so by degrees, add the units contained in the five given in the intuition, to the conception of seven. For I first take the number 7, and, for the conception of 5 calling in the aid of the fingers of my hand as objects of intuition, I add the units, which I before took together to make up the number 5, gradually now by means of the material image my hand, to the number 7, and by this process, I at length see the number 12 arise....”
(Added in B16, not found in A)
.....the fact that the proposition is true only arises from empirical proofs, in which it is found that it is impossible for this particular arithmetic operation to give a different result, and thereby sets the stage for establishing the criteria for any mathematical entailment, and in turn, establishing the possibility and the validity of pure a priori conditions in general. In this way, all logical propositions determined by reason are in logical form only, the content be what it may. From the simplest analytical proposition, A = A, to the most complex abstract synthetical mathematical calculus, the proofs of all logical forms depend on empirical conditions.
Quoting darthbarracuda
According to Kantian metaphysics, you don’t. Knowledge destroys belief, so if you know without the possibility of refutation that mathematical propositions are the mark of absolute certainty, because you can prove all of them to yourself, you have no reason whatsoever to doubt them. It behooves one, nonetheless, to keep in mind such certainty is only determinable under the auspices of the very system from which the the ground for it is given. In such case, not only is it impossible to doubt this certainty, but it is just as impossible to think of what form the doubt would have.
The justification of all this, is in the categories, the “...pure conceptions of the understanding...”, from which are given the schema of “quantity”, first in the form of numbers, and thereafter in the form of unity, the manifestations of the permissible connectedness of numbers. Because it is the case, at least in this particular epistemological theory, that the categories are absolutely essential, and given that the schema of the categories are always the same, it becomes impossible to arrive at different conclusions for any one proposition predicated on them, assuming internal logical consistency is met, the primary condition of the system as a whole. Still, justification is not proof, which, as already shown, is entirely dependent on empirical conditions.
Universality and necessity, in fact any terminology of any kind, the categories, even reason itself, if developed by humans, only applies to humans. Mathematical propositions will therefore be true, iff a human is responsible for them. They will be true wherever and whenever there is a human to think them, but not necessarily otherwise. To a rational agent with other than a intuitive/discursive cognitive system, nothing about mathematical truths, or any truths at all, can be said. Does 1 + 1 = 2 to an elephant? Or a resident of a planet we don’t even know about? Not only can we not say, but we don’t even have the means to understand how to ask.
And Nagel thought himself the first to wonder. No reason for it, really, for the answer had already been given, fully 200 years before he even thought about it.
Schopenhauer thought the 12 categories were unnecessary and arbitrary I believe. In Schopenhauer's system, time, space, and causality in the general a priori cognitive limits of how the Will is represented creating the subject-object "illusion" which is the realm of the phenomenal world we "think" is going on (but is only represented or cognized). From there he goes on to explain the fourfold "root" of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Of course, this itself doesn't necessarily answer the question of how such a perceiver exists in the first place (the first "eye" that sees the world, if you will). Mark Linsenmayer from the podcast The Partially Examined Life has the best critique on this aspect of Schopenhauer, which I will quote below. It is also something I have brought up here in TPF in previous threads. I can give you those links if you want, but I'd have to dig back a little.
I plan on rereading a few books of Schopenhauer's in the future, having finished some books by Hegel recently. There is this element in psychology where we know there are other people and we know we are dependent but there is then are element in logic that makes the world dependent on us. The scientific mind tries to understand these together by analyzing the mind-object relation
Quoting Mww
Okay, memory (or imagination) was the thing I had in mind when I wondered about Kant's definition of the a priori. I can taste a strawberry, but I can also remember or imagine the taste of a strawberry. But the pure a priori is that which is absolutely independent of all experience (=sensibility?).
That does not mean that I can have pure a priori thoughts, though:
Quoting Mww
Quoting Mww
Quoting Mww
Kant starts the Critique by claiming all knowledge begins with experience. Within the context of the above quotes, does this basically mean that thought is always tied to sensibility, but is nevertheless different from it?
Quoting Mww
That makes sense. Apodeiticity comes from the closed nature of the understanding, it is complete and unalterable. Truth is restricted to the domain in which it is conditioned, the thing-in-itself is literally outside of truth (for humans). Correct?
Quoting Mww
Do you mean that reason cannot ever reach absolute proof for empirical propositions, or that reason cannot ever reach absolute proof (within the domain of the human mind) for any proposition whatsoever?
Quoting Mww
Quoting Mww
What I don't understand is how "form" is different from "concept"; sensations (matter) are given form (intuitions), but intuitions themselves are unintelligible without being brought under a concept by the understanding through an act of synthesis involving the pure concepts.
My biggest source of confusion while reading Kant has been with the meaning of these words: intuition, object, and representation. They seem to often be used in different ways and it's difficult for me to keep track of what they mean in each context.
Can intuition have contents? I often hear about thoughts and sensations have contents, but never came across contents of intuition. Things are supposed to be given to intuition from the external world in CPR, which sounds like intuition is also type of mental process, but could it be storage like memory or a mental faculty of its own?
Not quite. Thought is different from sensibility, but thought is always and only tied to understanding.
“....For it** is, according to what has been said above, a faculty of thought....”
“....understanding cannot intuit, and the sensuous faculty cannot think...”
(** “it”, in context, is understanding; “what has been said above” doesn’t paraphrase properly. See A69/B94)
Empirical intuition is tied to sensibility. We don’t think about our sensations; we only realize there has been one.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Sure you can. Every change has a cause is an impure a priori cognition, insofar as here, something that changes is presupposed. You don’t have to step on the gas to know your car will go faster if you do. You also know it will also go a little faster if you get hit in the back by a little car, as well that it’ll go a lot faster if hit by a big truck.
But every change must have a cause is a pure a priori cognition, for it doesn’t consider any objects, but only the relation between objects in general, and time, which is.....as we all know....a pure intuition. And any proposition containing a pure representation, is pure a priori cognition. All parts of space are themselves space. And so on.
This reflects back to the mention of pure a priori cognitions thought as principles, or the laws derived from them. There is no exception to the principle, “every change must have a cause”, hence it is a pure a priori cognition. “No A can be not-A”, a law; “every existence is necessary”, a law; “existence cannot be a predicate but subject only”, a principle but not a law, for it has to do with the structure of pure reason itself, which is always speculative.
—————
Quoting darthbarracuda
Kant doesn’t say exactly what an intuition is, only what they do or how they come about. Empirically, or that which is an “external intuition” because its source is without us rather than within:
“....If, on the other hand, the object conforms to the nature of our faculty of intuition...”
“....sensible intuition, and hence are only conditions of the existence of things as phenomena...”
“....an intuition can take place only in so far as the object is given to us...”
This is quite difficult, because Kant also talks about “internal intuitions”, which do not arise from sensibility, hence are not susceptible to being phenomena, in other words, where an object is not given to us. As such, and because I can intuit myself as a thinking rational agent, but myself can hardly be considered a phenomenon, so it would seem internal intuitions are necessary. Kant is either not very clear about this, or he is far too clear, to the point of confusing his readers.
“...Now if there did not exist within you a faculty of intuition a priori; if this subjective condition were not in respect to its form also the universal condition a priori under which alone the object of this external intuition is itself possible; if the object (that is, the triangle) were something in itself, without relation to you the subject; how could you affirm that that which lies necessarily in your subjective conditions in order to construct a triangle, must also necessarily belong to the triangle in itself?...”
Good luck with that little tidbit. From that bolded, I just let the faculty of intuition be some contingent state of my subjective condition. I don’t really need to know exactly what it is, or its exact origin. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it sorta thing.
An object in Kant is either a real physical thing, iff it can be represented as a phenomenon, or a predicate belonging to a copula, iff contained in a logical proposition, re: an object of reason, or an object of experience. The real object and the object of experience are not the same, but relate to each other with sufficient logical justification to say the sensed object is to be known as a certain thing. An object of experience, on the other hand, is nothing but what the cognitive system says it is, after applying itself to the real perceived object, re: cloud formations, mirages, or, what the system conceives on its own accord, without the presence of an object, re: hallucinations.
A representation is just what the cognitive system substitutes for the real thing, the most general word for an object at any stage in its determination by the subject, or for the subjective act of forming the object at that level. Intuitions and conceptions are representations, judgement is a representation of a representation. Knowledge is not, insofar as the determination of the object by the subject, is already accomplished.
For what it’s worth.....
Just baffles me that people are alive and otherwise well, that reject that truism. Still, check out these rock formations:
https://thedailyplasma.blog/2017/11/03/triangles-in-nature-why/#:~:text=Triangular%20shapes%20are%20everywhere%20in%20Nature.%20They%20show,…%20well%2C%20natural.%20Or%20is%20it%20that%20simple%3F
Kinda hard for the average Smuck On The Street to agree there’s no triangles in Nature, when he can look right at ‘em.
————
Quoting tim wood
I think Kant would say those shapes are sensed, become phenomena, so must be empirical intuitions. The shapes may be recognized as triangles merely from being told the object is shaped in that particular way. In this case, the perceiver has no need to think a priori about lines or the arrangement of them, because the lines are there and they’ve already been arranged. Judgement merely says...yep, the spatial extension perceived conforms to the mental form cognized.
I think the key takeaway with respect to that quote, is that not everything of perception is a thing in itself. The first part of it states “object of this external intuition is itself possible”. But we’ve already agree there are no triangles in Nature, so it must be that “the object of this external intuition” is a sensible object we ourselves put in Nature. And because we created it, in accordance with its form residing in reason, It must appear to us as it is in itself. But it bears remembering we don’t need to cognize this appearance, herein the triangle in itself, because we’ve already cognized a priori exactly how the appearance will manifest and it is already known to us accordingly.
The second part asks, even if that which we construct and objectively illustrate then becomes a phenomenon because it affects our faculties of representation, we cannot say we know it as a thing in itself, which is already proven to be impossible, so it must be known in conjunction, not with its appearance from sensibility, but with its form from intuition, which we already have. Which is exactly what we did when we originally cognized it a priori, before the illustration of it.
The proper conclusion is, then, that there must be a faculty of intuition a priori within us.
Hope that makes sense, cuz it’s the hardest my brain has worked since.....oh, 1984, I think.
Of course nothing can be, but intuition doesn’t have anything to do with understanding.....
“...the understanding cannot intuit and the sensuous faculty cannot think...”
....but we’re still in the sensing stage, not the conceiving stage. We’ve synthesized matter to form, according to appearance, giving phenomena, but haven’t yet synthesized concepts to phenomena, according to judgement, giving cognition.
Besides, all this intuitive synthesis being completely outside our awareness, it must be a priori, or, it isn’t even happening that way at all. Hence....speculative metaphysics. We are aware of sensuous impressions, we are aware of how those impressions are to be known. All in between, is guesswork, albeit necessarily logically consistent.
—————
Quoting tim wood
Nahhhh....scientific thinking had already been established, and it is the ground for the theoretical epistemology of pure reason.
“.....Whether the treatment of that portion of our knowledge which lies within the province of pure reason advances with that undeviating certainty which characterizes the progress of science, we shall be at no loss to determine. If we find those who are engaged in metaphysical pursuits, unable to come to an understanding as to the method which they ought to follow; if we find them, after the most elaborate preparations, invariably brought to a stand before the goal is reached, and compelled to retrace their steps and strike into fresh paths, we may then feel quite sure that they are far from having attained to the certainty of scientific progress and may rather be said to be merely groping about in the dark....”
CPR admits the validity of scientific thinking, that is, logical theory verified by experience, and thereby attempts to ground metaphysical thinking in accordance with the certainty of scientific thinking. It begins by asking, “...how is metaphysics as a science possible...”. (absent in A/ added in B22)
Now, if you’d said, CPR is intended to establish the ground for thinking scientifically......we’d be off to the rodeo.
—————-
Quoting tim wood
I’ve noticed you speak of this in other places and times. Sooner or later I probably would have asked about it.
Kant must have attributed to reason three fundamental conditions, for there are ....DUH!!!....three critiques, to wit:, theoretical (CPR), judicial (CofJ) and practical (CpR). Everydayman thinks more about his actions than about how he comes up with his actions, which implies practical reason has more importance overall than either of the other two conditional forms of reason. Nevertheless, given the two basic kinds of reason qua reason, pure and practical....
“.....To this question we have given a sufficient answer; for we have shown that, as the former stands in a relation to a different kind of condition from those of the latter, the law of the one does not affect the law of the other and that, consequently, both can exist together in independence of and without interference with each other....”
....I shall await your exposition as to how the one might be grounded in the other.
Hmmmmm, a question: Of course, this division between the practical and rational is subsumed under conditions that make thought even possible at all. One has to think through the categorical imperative and practical matters in general, that is, synthesize representations. to determine what to do, so the Critique of Pure Reason is analytically presupposed by the practical, one could argue. If the matter is "the law" of the one not affecting the other, then the matter rests with what is meant by "affect" which requires contextual clarification.
Sorry......what?
I read through your discussion quickly, so I could have missed the mark.
While I didn’t technically ask a question, I was querying Tim, as to how he thought the one grounded in the other. The quote merely relates to Tim’s assertion, as a preliminary reference.
Yes, I see. But you did "ask" an implicit question of Time Wood, with "I shall await your exposition as to how the one might be grounded in the other," which is, "How can the one be grounded in the other?" Sounds more like a clear, if impilcit, question.
I’m not going to spend much time on this, but taken in context, re: “given the two basic kinds....I await...” is a declaration of intention, not an “ask”.
Can’t be reading stuff into what wasn’t there, doncha know.
Doesn’t this presuppose that which we wish to know? If experience is the teacher, from whence comes the teacher? Or, better yet....from what does the teacher learn?
Quoting tim wood
Hume would clap for Scottish joy, that a modern intellectual finds his empiricist philosophy in good standing. Kant would exhibit typical Prussian indignation, that a modern intellectual neglects the implicit continuity, insofar as that which measures presupposes the ability, yet no account of it is offered.
There’s also a minor categorical error here, for we are talking about different applications of reason, but experience is the ultimate measuring stick of knowledge.
What are we to do with “exist together in independence of and without interference from each other”?
And no mention of the classifications of these kinds of reason. Practical reason can be pure, just as speculative reason can be impure.
Not to say that wasn’t some splendid axe-work. Far better than the general butchering running rampant hereabouts.
"The primary problem to be solved is not how we advance by means of a priori ideas to the independently real, but how we are able to advance beyond a subject term to a predicate which it does not contain." - Commentary to Kant's CPR, NKS pp.26 1923
“....I confine myself to the examination of reason alone and its pure thought; and I do not need to seek far for the sum-total of its cognition, because it has its seat in my own mind....”
“...the mere natural disposition of the human mind to metaphysics...”
“...For we have not here to do with the nature of outward objects, which is infinite, but solely with the mind, which judges of the nature of objects, and, again, with the mind only in respect of its cognition a priori....”
“....the form must lie ready a priori for them in the mind....”
As unsatisfactory as that may be, that the mind is the catch-all for that which can’t be explained....but there it is. Besides, if Nature teaches, why would the notion of Copernicus’ transitional thesis even be mentioned as a preliminary inspiration for the entire transcendental philosophy? I submit that we teach ourselves, Nature being nothing but the availability of occasions.
“....Transcendental philosophy is the idea of a science, for which the Critique of Pure Reason must sketch the whole plan architectonically, that is, from principles, with a full guarantee for the validity and stability of all the parts which enter into the building. It is the system of all the principles of pure reason. If this Critique itself does not assume the title of transcendental philosophy, it is only because, to be a complete system, it ought to contain a full analysis of all human knowledge a priori. Our critique must, indeed, lay before us a complete enumeration of all the radical conceptions which constitute the said pure knowledge. But from the complete analysis of these conceptions themselves, as also from a complete investigation of those derived from them, it abstains, partly because it would be deviating from the end in view to occupy itself with this analysis, since this process is not attended with the difficulty and insecurity to be found in the synthesis, to which our critique is entirely devoted, and partly because it would be inconsistent with the unity of our plan to burden this essay with the vindication of the completeness of such an analysis and deduction, with which, after all, we have at present nothing to do. This completeness of the analysis of these radical conceptions, as well as of the deduction from the conceptions a priori which may be given by the analysis, we can, however, easily attain, provided only that we are in possession of all these radical conceptions, which are to serve as principles of the synthesis, and that in respect of this main purpose nothing is wanting....”
Cop-out? Or maybe merely the lazy way of saying....hell, damned if I know where these come from, but trust me, my system needs them so they must be there? Kantian metaphysics suffers these explanatory-gap slings and arrows yet, perhaps even for good reasons.
But still, “all the parts that enter into the building” seems to say the mind isn’t part of the building, but is just where, or is merely a euphemism for where, the building happens to be done.
————
Quoting tim wood
“We don’t need no education.
We don’t need no thought control.
No dark sarcasms in the classroom.
Teacher!! Leave us kids alone!!”
“....it would be more consistent to favour a criticism of this kind, by which alone the labours of reason can be established on a firm basis, than to support the ridiculous despotism of the schools, which raise a loud cry of danger to the public over the destruction of cobwebs, of which the public has never taken any notice, and the loss of which, therefore, it can never feel....”
All that to say this: you know of Ron White, right? Guy that made “you can’t fix stupid” into a whole Las Vegas comedy show. Tours, HBO special, an album, the whole shootin’ match. Anyway....the public being those under the influence of the schools, and the schools being that which is challenged in a particular domain, Kant metaphorically says, “you can’t teach critical thinking”, for thinking of the pure a priori kind, that “...which rises to the level of speculation...”, is a fundamental human attribute, and one must teach himself to do it properly, with the least error.
It seems to me......
Not that I know of. Defines metaphysics as such, defines transcendental this or that pursuant to context, but doesn’t explicitly combine them. But he does so combine transcendental and philosophy, so one could make the leap if he wanted to badly enough.
Sure, thanks for your confirmation. :up:
A great idea. :up: