Kant and the transcendental answer to frailty June 11, 2008

There are two different ways in which transcendental can be understood. On the one hand, we can claim the transcendentiality is the transcendent; something which exists outside the sphere of all possible cognitions – something not able to be given in empirical consciousness. On the other, the transcendental is that which lies at the ground of another thing, something without which it cannot be thought, given, or experienced. This type of the transcendent is what Kant is approaching in the Critique of Pure Reason – that without which we could not have the experiences – the phenomenal experiences – which we have. So when he speaks of a “transcendental unity of apperception,” it is clear why this is synonymous with a “primitive” unity. The unity of our manifold is a unity of possibilities, not of the content given through sense, but of a unity of the formal conditions of the sense of all objects. So, when he speaks of the transcendent, Kant is more grounded than would appear. For although the manifold can be considered as a “virtual” space, the conditions of it are the borders, boundaries, and delimitations, beyond which nothing can occur to us. The identification of an a priori action or faculty is then a concept which we synthesize from a series, disparate parts, and unity transcendentally – the unity is extant beforehand. We don’t unify it, but its unity is a necessary precondition. We identify it in unity.

This allows him to write, for instance, that:

It is by means of the transcendental unity of apperception that all the manifold given in an intuition is united into a conception of the object. On this account it is called objective, and must be distinguished from the subjective unity of consciousness, which is a determination of the internal sense, by means of which the said manifold in intuition is given emiprically to be so united.

The internal sense is, of course, Time. By means of conjoining different events occurring in time, which means affecting these events by our filtration of them – in order to be understood – , we make, of our will and volition, our imagination, a determinate representation of ourselves to ourselves. But his representation of ourselves differs from the transcendental unity of apperception, for my empirical perceiving of myself differs from the foundation of this possible cognition. This foundation, contrary to the empirical, the phenomenal world of sense, is:

“the pure form of intuition in time, merely as an intuition, which contains a given manifold, is subject to the original unity of consciousness, and that solely by means of the necessary relation of the manifold in intuition to the I think, consequently by means of the pure synthesis of the understanding, which lies a priori at the foundation of all empirical synthesis.

It’s interesting, in this sense, that Kant disparages the analysis of concepts as “empirical.” In fact, his rationalist roots, which up until now were expressed only in the form of these transcendental arguments, takes on a dogmatic stance. The determinations made “in concreto” are subject to error – “One person connects the notion conveyed in a word with one thing, another with another thing…[and that which] is given by experience [is not] necessarily and universally valid.” Similarly, these empirical effects of consciousness, effects of error, are listed elsewhere as memories, misrepresentations, illusions of judgments. But most importantly, I think, is that our living-in-the-world is the source of error, while only its possibility is the source of absolutely true concepts. It appears to be a kind of Platonic inversion – there are no longer transcendent forms, but transcendental foundations, and these grounds are purer than the life they make possible.

Kantian apperception June 10, 2008

Of the Possibility of a Conjunction of the Manifold Representations given by Sense

Kant begins Section II of the Transcendental Deduction with an overview of the faculty of representation, as constituted by the information and activity given by (or contributed by) intuition and understanding. I may have this wrong, but it’s the most I can understanding at the present.

First, we have the concept of conjunction, which is the process of synthesizing the manifold in intuition. By this, Kant appears to say that we conjoin, which is an interesting choice of word, the undetermined datum given to us by our senses. But this conjunction isn’t an activity of sensibility, nor is it an activity, spontaneously occurring, in intuition. No: it is an activity of the faculty of representation, an activity which precedes the occurence of representations in the mind, which occurs by the understanding. In essence, Kant is arguing that the datum of our sensibility are not, in any way, synthesized as given. They are disparate, like Locke’s simple ideas, and as such are merely successions, series, and repetitions, of particular types of affections. To form a concept, or a representation, of a singular object, of the form of an object, or of a unity of data, is an activity contributed by the mind, not by intuition, which merely provides the manifold content for our representations.

Kant calls this action synthesis, and it should be noted that it, as an activity, is never passive. This is an important aspect of the transcendental conditions for cognition for Kant, because the concept of synthesizing the manifold in intuition must be attributed to an active, thinking, conceptualizing, subject. This is why he writes that “we cannot represent anything as conjoined in the object without having previously conjoined it ourselves.” So of all the concepts we have of our cognition, conjunction is the only one which cannot arise from affection, from sensibility, but on the contrary must be that spontaneous act which the subject does. We are not talking here of a cognition, you or I, breaking apart an already-formed concept into its component parts; we are talking about the subject’s activity of forming a unity of data into a representation which can then be analyzed. Hence this conjunction is synthesis, not analysis.

We are able to form from this two different concepts of conjunction, one of which is the above:

1. The concept of the manifold and its synthesis

2. The concept of the representation of the synthetical unity of the manifold.

The second concept, of the synthesizing of unity of the manifold in intuition, isn’t something which, as Kant points out, arises from the application of a judgment to these different concepts. The unity “a priori precedes all conceptions of conjunction, [and] is not the category of unity.” This is because Kant is looking for the synthetical unity of the manifold in someplace other than the concepts of the pure understanding, which are based on the logical forms of judgment, or those forms of the activity of the mind; and so “the category of unity pressuposed conjunction,” and cannot be used as a foundation for the concept of the pure understanding. He says: “we must therefore look still higher for this unity, in that, namely, which contains the ground of the unity of diverse concepts in judgments, the ground, consequently, of the possibility of the existence of the understanding, even in regard its logical use.” This ground of the understanding’s existence is the transcendental unity of apperception.

Of the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception

This section of the Deduction is the crux of Kant’s argument, and consequently the fulcrum of his entire system’s success or failure. It is here that Kant attempts to prove that the concepts of the pure understanding (the categories) apply a priori to the entirety of experience. He begins by writing:

The I think must accompany all my representations, for otherwise something would be represented in me which could not be thought; in other words, the representation would either be impossible, or at least be, in relation to me, nothing. That representation which can be given previously to all thought, is called intuition. All the diversity or manifold content of intuition, has, therefore, a necessary relation to the I think, in the subject in which this diversity is found.”

There are several important points to note here. The first is that the I think is the concept of the action which the I think does; that is, when Kant is discussing the spontaneous act of the understanding’s unifying the content of intuition, he is discussing the transcendental conditions, but discussing them in a way in which they are represented to us. Therefore, the I think is both the transcendental condition of the possibility of all acts of thought, and the representation to me of this process. This is why, later, he will say that the statement “These representations given in intuition, belong all of them to me,” is the same as “I unite all these representations in one self-consciousness, or can at least so unity them.” The second important point is that the I think accompanies all representations, while at the same time being the condition of the subject’s possession of these same representation (the possibility of thought). That is, it supplies the missing component of the intuition as sense – that which makes the sense cogitable and, moreover, mine. The third point is that, while intuitions are prior to thought, the constitution of a thought, or cognition, is also dependent upon an original intuition; and the having of an intuition is always accompanied by the I think, or the representation to myself of my possession, or reception, of these intuitions.

The I think, like many of the terms Kant uses in this section, is a rather vague concept. Likewise with the concepts of conjunction, synthesis, and several others. He appears to use the terms more loosely than previously, and gives several complimentary definitions of the same thing. But in a general sense, it would appear that we can say the I think is merely the consciousness of a representation, or the determination of an affection. It would also appear to be transcendental, or a priori, that is, prior to all experience, and the conditions of it (as stated). So when we say, along with Descartes’ cogito, that I know I exist because I think, Kant would reply that I think, because, and as the possibility, of conscious existence. Existence is given. How is another question. This is why his deduction is transcendental.

So, it is important to remember that this act is spontaneous. By spontaneity, Kant means that it is an impulse, that it proceeds naturally, that it is directed towards action internally, but most of all that it is an activity. While its etymology implies freedom of will (from the Latin sponte), this isn’t explicitly the case in Kant. On the contrary, it is an act characteristic of the will, but moreover a mechanical type of process, a mechanism latent within the brain, which is awoken and accompanies all experience: “That it to say,” Kant writes, “it cannot be regarded as belonging to mere sensibility. I call it pure apperception, in order to distinguish it from empirical; or primitive apperception, because it is a self-consciousness which, while it gives birth to the representation I think, must necessarily be capable of accompanying all our representations.” To accompany our representations implies that it coordinates and corresponds to them in time. It is logically connected, temporally connected, and therefore joined with them. This primitive, pure act of the understanding is the basis of all thought, and by conjoining representations together, submitting them to the categories, and rendering them cogitable, is the most important aspect of the entire philosophy.

Suppose, however, that the I think is less than a unity. Suppose it is a series in repetition over time. In a sense it is – always and continually reaffirming itself. So one I think could be thought to be different from another. But Kant repeatedly stresses that all thinking is mine. That is, we all have possession of our representations, and thus the transcendental unity of apperception (of the I think) is found, since transcendentally, at the foundations of all our affirmations of empirical thought. That is, we cannot think our thoughts if they were not ours, but we do think thoughts, and we have the concept of their being-ours. The manifold is always determined as mine. This is why Kant says that the I think is a unity and always the same. It is always the same affirmation of self. So, therefore, the unity of all acts of this apperception is found transcendentally in a “primitive,” or a priori, apperception – in its capacity and action. For, “the manifold representations which are given in an intuition would not all of them be my representations, if they did not all belong to one self-consciousness, that is, as my representations, they must conform to the condition under which alone they can exist altogether in a common self-consciousness, because otherwise they would not all without exception belong to me.”

Synthetical Unity: Why?

This is why the unity of apperception is synthetical. Like above, we could suppose that all the subject’s representations, accompanied by the thought of myself thinking them, are merely disparate. But that is not enough to constitute the unity of the subject, as Kant perceives it. In order to have a unified subjectivity, we must identity a conjunction of the different affirmations of the I think. Not thinking of an object, and then another, and then another, can produce the unity of the subject. So “only in so far as I conjoin” representations together, that is, I synthesize different affirmations of thinking objects together, can my subjectivity affirm itself as wholly unified in myself. Where is the epistemic status of some disparate, disjointed, affirmation of a representation, if it is not unified in my consciousness with another representation? Nowhere. So where do the pure concepts of the understanding fit in, at this point? They are those concepts which, not being derived from experience, are allow representations to be combined in consciousness by virtue of themselves. They are original and a priori – hence pure concepts. They are those concepts which constitute all primitive acts of conjunction in apperception, therefore producing unity.

Hopefully I’m at least partially right on some of these things. This is a challenging section of the text.

Note on Apperception / working through June 10, 2008

I’m reading the Transcendental Deduction in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and realized that I didn’t have an exact grasp on the concept of apperception in a specific way, only in a general sense, and more specifically as Kant uses it rather synonymously to self-consciousness. I’m not sure I’m right on this, but it helps me think it through.

Kant uses apperception to denote, roughly, the concept of consciousness. At times, he will use the term consciousness as a loose synonym for cognition or the unity of all acts of thought; or merely the being-aware of the subject of itself; the projection of the subject outside itself (or outside the immediate content of its empirical intuitions, abstracting from them in a synthesizing act the immediate contents of its intuitions); or the transcendental unity of the subject. This last definition – of transcendental unity – is what Kant defines as apperception, or more correctly, the “Transcendental Unity of Apperception.” The term denotes, more so than consciousness, which could signify a thing, a substance, the homunculus cozying up inside our heads; a state, or an action, of the Ego [das Ich, or "the I"]. This is particularly appropriate, because this transcendental apperception is always spontaneous; it is always acting upon a representation, which is, by the understanding, determined and conjoined by the synthesis of intuitions and concepts. This synthesis (conceptualization) is always accompanied by the I think, which is always the same, and always necessarily an act of possession by the subject, who has an awareness of his or her understanding’s operations – thus they have the same affirmation of the I think over and over again. This is what Kant means when he writes:

“The I think must accompany all my representations, for otherwise something would be represented in me which could not be thought; in other words, the representation would either be impossible, or at least be, in relation to me, nothing. That representation which can be given previously to all thought, is called intuition. All the diversity of the manifold content of intuition, has, therefore, a necessary relation to the I think, in the subject in which this diversity is found. But this representation, I think, is an act of spontaneity; that is to say, it cannot be regarded as belonging to mere sensibility…It is in all acts of consciousness one and the same, and unaccompanied by it, no representation can exist for me. The unity of this apperception…[indicates] the possibility of a priori cognition in general.”

It’s interesting, then, since Kant is discussing apperception transcendentally, that it must always possess, not just similitude or resemblance to itself in all its action, but sameness. We could think of it like a mechanism, this I think, which always, situated at some transcendental space within our heads, grasps in the same motion at a whole series of objects passing by it. If it wants to pick up an apple, or a pen, or a phone, or a book, the movements of its fingers, the tense of the muscles in its palm, always operate in the same manner. This is because its hand grasps at representations, which are different from objects, but which are the content, resulting from a determination, or synthesis, of a manifold given in intuition. That is, it is a re-presentation, or a constitution, of the object by the subject, the object itself being the thing-in-itself.

It’s almost a terrifying thought. Not so much that we are constituted by this unity of apperception, but the fact that, in Kant, it’s motion never changes. It’s important to note that the unity of apperception is the foundation of my Ego, of my calling myself me – and so we are transitioned from the possibility of affirming ourselves in differing ways. We are never allowed the possibility of affirming myself as not me, because of apperception’s greed.

First Division of Transcendental Analytic (Book I, Chapter 2, Section I) June 9, 2008

Book I: Analytic of Concepts

Chapter2, Section I

Of the Principles of a Transcendental Deduction in General

I. This section is otherwise entitled the Transcendental Deduction. Kant here stresses the necessity of a deduction of the concept of cause transcendentally, not from induction, since the empirical inference of causation only, as Hume proved, “[collects] from phenomena a law…that usually happens, but the element of necessity is not found in it.” So Kant concludes that the concept of cause must either have a priori foundations in the understanding, or be necessarily faulty.

a. Transcendental Deduction: an explanation of the manner in which concepts can apply a priori to objects [contra empirical deduction, or from experience and reflection].

i. Purpose: to show that the concepts of the understanding [categories] are a priori conditions of the possibility of all experience.

ii. Necessary to prove that “conceptions, which make up…cognition…are destined for pure use a priori, independent of all experience.”

1. Note: the purpose of the transcendental deduction doesn’t conflict with, but compliments, the reasons for its necessity. The categories describe thought as it exists a priori in the mind, and also, therefore, by opening up the intelligibility of phenomena to cognition, the conditions for the possibility of having experience. Note too, that Kant’s transition from judgments to categories implied that all reality is cogitated “propositionally,” or the relations between signs [representations] is the same as the relations between subjects and predicates in all propositions.

II. Recapitulation/Addendum:

a. What Kant calls a physiological explanation from experience (e.g., Locke) cannot be sufficient, since one cannot derive the a priori necessity of pure concepts from it, but only our possession of the concepts.

b. Geometry, as a pure a priori science, extends to external sensation in use [cognition of space]. Since the pure form of external sense is space, all “geometrical cognition” possesses immediate evidence (as pure a priori intuition is its foundation), and the objects of these cognitions (in form) are given a priori in the cognition itself.

i. Not so with pure conceptions (likewise of space), since they affirm predicates of objects in pure thought a priori, and therefore cannot appeal to intuition or sensibility (i.e., they are not presented with objects a priori in intuition).

c. The categories do not represent the conditions of objects given in intuition, and so it isn’t of immediate necessity that objects conform to them; nor that the understanding contain a priori the conditions of these objects

ii. I.e., Kant wishes to show how “the subjective conditions of thought can have objective validity,” and become conditions of the possibility of all cognition of objects.

Transition to the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories

III. Synthetic representation [synthesizing of a manifold of representations] and its objects can correspond and relate necessarily to each other in these ways:

a. Intuition: object makes representation possible

i. An empirical relation. A priori representation impossible since the object given sensibly, i.e., there is a causal connection through intuition; but the foundation for these a posteriori determinations of objects is given a priori in the mind (transcendental aesthetic).

b. Conception: representation makes object possible.

i. The representation alone doesn’t produce the existence of the object. The representation here determines the object a priori in cognition, relying on the a priori faculty of understanding. Only by means of representation, which determines according to the pure concepts of the understanding, can we cogitate the object.

IV. Given this (III), Kant asks: “Whether there do not exist a priori in the mind conceptions of understanding [categories, which determine the object in cognition], as conditions under which alone something, if not intuited [i.e., is not directly intuited, but exists in the mind as a representation of an object], is yet thought as an object?” -> Since this well be so:

a. All empirical cognition of objects conform to these concepts [categories], since if they are not presupposed, nothing can be an object of experience.

b. Conceptions of objects lie as a priori conditions at the foundation of all empirical cognition [union of intuition and sensation].

V. Categories: concepts of an object in general [abstracted from particular determinations], by means of which its intuition is contemplated as determined in relation to one of the logical functions of judgment.

a. The empirical intuition (the phenomena) is always contemplated as a subject, never as a predicate.

First Division of Transcendental Analytic (Book I, Chapter 1) June 7, 2008

Book I: Analytic of Concepts

Chapter I

I. General Introduction

a. to analyze the whole of our a priori knowledge into the elements of pure cognition of the understanding (i.e., the transcendental analytic):

i. (1) the conceptions (of analysis) must be pure, not empirical; (2) they must not be derivative or complex, but fundamental; (3) that they belong to understanding, not intuition; (4) that we be able to exhaust a table of these conceptions of the pure understanding.

ii. The completeness of transcendental analytic (totality of a priori cognition) only given by the whole of an integrated table (of conceptions and relations).

II. Introduction to Analytic of Concepts: by “Analytic of Concepts” Kant understands the “dissection” (analysis) of the faculty of the understanding, in order to investigate the possibility of conceptions a priori (as origins or in pure relations), by “looking for them” in the understanding as their “birthplace,” and analyzing the pure [non-sensuous] use of the understanding.

a. The conceptions of the understanding arise pure and unmixed as an absolute unity, and may therefore be connected (related) according to an idea.

Transcendental Clue to the Discovery of All Pure Conceptions of the Understanding

III. Section I. – Of the Logical Use of the Understanding in General

a. The cognition of every (act of) understanding is a cognition of conceptions, not of intuitions. Proof: since the understanding is a non-sensuous faculty of cognition; and independent of sensibility we have no intuition; and besides conceptions there is no other faculty of cognition; then the understanding cognizes conceptions.

b. All conceptions depend upon functions (as intuitions depend upon affections)

i. Function: “the unity of the act of arranging diverse representations under one common representation.”

1. Conceptions based on spontaneity of thought; sensuous intuitions on receptivity of impressions.

2. The understanding cannot do anything with conceptions other than judge by means of them.

ii. Judgment: the mediate form of cognition of an object; the representation of a representation.

1. Explanation: no representation, except of intuition, relates immediately to an object, only another representation (as an intuition or conception).

2. In all judgments there is a concept which applies to, and is valid for, many other conceptions; and comprehends a series or complex [manifold] of representations, the last being immediately connected to an object by intuition.

3. All judgments are functions of unity in (of) our representations. Therefore, we can reduce all acts of understanding to judgments, such that understanding is the faculty of judgment

iii. All the functions of the understanding can be discovered when the functions of unity in judgments are exhausted.

1. Proof: (1) thought is cognition by means of conceptions; (2) conceptions, as predicates of possible judgments, relate to the representations of an indeterminate object; (3) all conceptions which contain representations under them are predicates to possible judgments

2. Note: Kant defines reality as explicitly linguistic, or at least of possible propositional form; that is, expressing logical relationships which are knowable. Certain conceptions could therefore be “higher” (or more polysemic) signifiers, under which unity a judgment (act of understanding) can occur.

IV. Section II. – Of the Logical Function of the Understanding in Judgments

a. Abstracted from all content of a judgment, so only the “intellectual form” exists, the function of thought in a judgment can be outlined as:

b. Notes on the Table of Judgments:

i. The modality (IV) in judgments contributes nothing to the content of a judgment, but concerns only the value of the copula in relationship to thought. Modal statements can be obviously false but necessary for cognition in general, especially in their application to practical reasoning. In Assertorical statements, we regard the affirmation or negation of the statement as true; in Apodictical ones, as necessary; and in Problematical ones, as merely possible.

ii. All relations of thought to judgments are: (1) of the predicate to subject (two concepts); (2) of the premise to its consequence (two judgments); (3) of parts to themselves or to a whole (relations of judgments).

V. Section III. – Of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding, or Categories

a. Transcendental Logic has at its disposal the manifold content of a priori sensibility, given by transcendental aesthetic (which gives matter to pure conceptions of the understanding), without which transcendental logic would have no content.

i. Synthesis: the process of joining representations together and understanding what is manifold in them in one cognition. Synthesis is prior to knowledge and is not analysis.

1. The synthesis of a manifold (diversity) is antecedent to the production of (a) cognition; since synthesis is the elements of cognition united into a single content.

2. We are seldom conscious of the synthesis of representations

3. Pure Synthesis: the manifold of representations in synthesis given a priori (e.g., time and space). Gives us the pure concepts of the understanding (that which rests upon a basis of a priori synthetical unity).

ii. Analysis: the bringing together of different representations under one conception; but transcendental logic reduces to conceptions – not representations – the pure synthesis of representations. Requires:

1. A manifold (diversity) of pure intuition; the synthesis of this manifold; the conceptions which give unity to pure synthesis and consist only in the representation of this necessary synthetical unity, which is given by the understanding.

iii. The same function which unifies manifold representations in judgment also unifies the synthesis of manifold representations in intuition(s), which is called the pure conception of the understanding.

1. Pure conception of the understanding: applies a priori to objects of intuition (without regards their differences). By means of the synthetical unity of the manifold (representations) in intuition, a transcendental content is introduced into representations, which are pure concepts of the understanding, and apply a priori to objects. The Table of Categories, or Pure Conceptions of the Understanding, follows:

iv. The catalogue [table] of all the originally pure [not intermixed with sensation] concepts [active representations enabling thought] of the synthesis [action of unifying representations together] which the understanding contains [performs] a priori [transcendentally, as a method of gaining knowledge], constitute the pure understanding.

1. Only in the categories can the understanding render the manifold of intuition conceivable (i.e., to think an object of intuition).

2. The third term of each category arises from the contemplation of one of the two preceding forms with the other; but is not a derived, but a primitive, conception of pure understanding; nevertheless a specific act of the understanding required to produce it.

Kant’s silhouette June 6, 2008

Kant, in outline form. Updated whenever I see fit, find time to read, transcribe notes, stop sleeping, or generally get up off my ass. Outline, however, is incorrect. What would be correct is silhouette, since outlines are brief and terse, but silhouettes are proportional in size (and, in the case of Kant, the potential to rip whole sections of skin off one’s body in a manic, somnambulant, fit of frustration) and shape, only with less color. Therefore: silhouette, the outline-form for people with problems of brevity.