Introduction to German Idealism 5/26: texts on Kant and Hegel

Introduction to German Idealism (5/26) "Self-consciousness as Principle of Cognition" Reading material for the lecture on Monday February 15th, 7 PM GMT (8 PM, CET) The text of Hegel will be read in detail on Friday, February 19th, at the same time. www.wiziq.com Robbert Veen - http://www.robbertveen.com  1. Hegel on Kant (History of Philosophy) 2. Phenomenology of Spirit: Selfconsciousness 3. Jill Vance Buroker: Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. An introduction NB the passages marked in red will be used for Monday's meeting Hegel on Kant (History of Philosophy) 1. Critique of Pure Reason 1. In the first place, as to the theoretic philosophy, Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason sets to work in a psychological manner, i.e. historically, inasmuch as he describes the main stages in theoretic consciousness. The first faculty is sensuousness generally, the second understanding, the third reason. All this he simply narrates; quite empirically, without developing it from proceeding by necessity. a. The a priori fact of sensuous existence, the forms of sensuous existence, constitute the beginning of this transcendentalism. [… b. The second faculty, the understanding, is something very different from sensuousness; the latter is Receptivity, while Kant calls thought in general Spontaneity — an expression which belongs to the philosophy of Leibnitz. The understanding is active thought, I myself; it “is the faculty of thinking the object of sensuous perception.” Yet it has thoughts merely without real content: “Thoughts without content are void and empty, sensuous perceptions without Notions are blind.” The understanding thus obtains from the sensuous its matter, both empirical and a priori, time and space; and it thinks this matter, but its thoughts are very different from this matter. Or it is a faculty of a particular kind, and it is only when both occur, when the sensuous faculty has supplied material and the understanding has united to this its thoughts, that knowledge results. The thoughts of the understanding as such are thus limited thoughts, thoughts of the finite only. Now logic, as transcendental logic, likewise sets forth the conceptions which the understanding has a priori in itself and “whereby it thinks objects completely a priori.” Thoughts have a form which signifies their being the synthetic function which brings the manifold into a unity. I am this unity, the transcendental apperception, the pure apperception of self-consciousness. I=I; I must ‘accompany’ all our conceptions. This is a barbarous exposition of the matter. As self-consciousness I am the completely void, general I, completely indeterminate and abstract; apperception is determination generally, the activity whereby I transplant an empirical content into my simple consciousness, while perception rather signifies feeling or conceiving. In order that a content may enter this One, it must be infected by its simplicity; it is thus that the content first becomes my content. The comprehending medium is ‘I’; whatever I have to do with must allow itself to be forced into these forms of unity. This is a great fact, an important item of knowledge; what thought produces is unity; thus it produces itself, for it is the One. Yet the fact that I am the one and, as thinking, the simplifier, is not by Kant satisfactorily set forth. The unity may likewise be called relation; for in so far as manifold is pre-supposed, and as this on the one side remains a manifold while on the other side it is set forth as one, so far may it be said to be related. Now as ‘I’ is the universal transcendental unity of self-consciousness which binds together the empirical matter of conception generally, there are various modes in this relationship, and here we have the transcendental nature of the categories or universal thought-determinations. […] Thinking understanding is thus indeed the source of the individual categories, but because on their own account they are void and empty, they only have significance through their union with the given, manifold material of perception, feeling, &c. Such connection of sensuous material with categories now constitutes the facts of experience, i.e. the matter of sensation after it is brought under the categories; and this is knowledge generally.(13) Kant however connects with this the statement that experience grasps phenomena only, and that by means of the knowledge which we obtain through experience we do not know things as they are in themselves, but only as they are in the form of laws of perception and sensuousness. For the first component part of experience, sensation, is doubtless subjective, since it is connected with our organs. The matter of perception is only what it is in my sensation. I know of this sensation only and not of the thing. But, in the second place, the objective, which ought to constitute the opposite to this subjective side, is itself subjective likewise: it does not indeed pertain to my feeling, but it remains shut up in the region of my self-consciousness; the categories are only determinations of our thinking understanding. Neither the one nor the other is consequently anything in itself, nor are both together, knowledge, anything in itself, for it only knows phenomena — a strange contradiction.  Hegel on Kant 2. Self-consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit THE TRUTH WHICH CONSCIOUS CERTAINTY OF SELF REALIZES IN the kinds of certainty hitherto considered, the truth for consciousness is something other than consciousness itself. The conception, however, of this truth vanishes in the course of our experience of it. What the object immediately was in itself--whether mere being in sense-certainty, a concrete thing in perception, or force in the case of understanding--it turns out, in truth, not to be this really; but instead, this inherent nature (Ansich) proves to be a way in which it is for an other. The abstract conception of the object gives way before the actual concrete object, or the first immediate idea is cancelled in the course of experience. Mere certainty vanished in favour of the truth. There has now arisen, however, what was not established in the case of these previous relationships, viz. a certainty which is on a par with its truth, for the certainty is to itself its own object, and consciousness is to itself the truth. Otherness, no doubt, is also found there; consciousness, that is, makes a distinction; but what is distinguished is of such a kind that consciousness, at the same time, holds there is no distinction made. If we call the movement of knowledge conception, and knowledge, qua simple unity or Ego, the object, we see that not only for us [tracing the process], but likewise for knowledge itself, the object corresponds to the conception; or, if we put it in the other form and call conception what the object is in itself, while applying the term object to what the object is qua object or for an other, it is clear that being "in-itself" and being "for an other" are here the same. For the inherent being (Ansich) is consciousness; yet it is still just as much that for which an other (viz. what is "in-itself") is. And it is for consciousness that the inherent nature (Ansich) of the object, and its "being for an other" are [219] one and the same. Ego is the content of the relation, and itself the process of relating. It is Ego itself which is opposed to an other and, at the same time, reaches out beyond this other, which other is all the same taken to be only itself. […] What seems to have been lost, then, is only the principal moment, viz. the simple fact of having independent subsistence for consciousness. But, in reality, self-consciousness is reflexion out of the bare being that belongs to the world of sense and perception, and is essentially the return out of otherness. As self -consciousness, it is movement. But when it distinguishes only its self as such from itself, distinction is straightway taken to be superseded in the sense of involving otherness. The distinction is not, and self-consciousness is only motionless tautology, Ego is Ego, I am I. When for self-consciousness the distinction does not also have the shape of being, it is not self-consciousness. For [220] self-consciousness, then, otherness is a fact, it does exist as a distinct moment; but the unity of itself with this difference is also a fact for self-consciousness, and is a second distinct moment. With that first moment, self-consciousness occupies the position of consciousness, and the whole expanse of the world of sense is conserved as its object, but at the same time only as related to the second moment, the unity of self-consciousness with itself. And, consequently, the sensible world is regarded by self-consciousness as having a subsistence which is, however, only appearance, or forms a distinction from self-consciousness that per se has no being. This opposition of its appearance and its truth finds its real essence, however, only in the truth--in the unity of self-consciousness with itself. This unity must become essential to self-consciousness, i.e. self-consciousness is the state of Desire in general. Consciousness has, qua self-consciousness, henceforth a twofold object--the one immediate, the object of sense-certainty and of perception, which, however, is here found to be marked by the character of negation; the second, viz. itself, which is the true essence, and is found in the first instance only in the opposition of the first object to it. Self-consciousness presents itself here as the process in which this opposition is removed, and oneness or identity with itself established. For us or implicitly, the object, which is the negative element for self-consciousness, has on its side returned into itself, just as on the other side-consciousness has done. Through this reflexion into self, the object has become Life. What self-consciousness distinguishes as having a being distinct from itself, has in it too, so far as it is affirmed to be, not merely the aspect of sense-certainty and perception; it is a being reflected into itself, and the object of immediate desire is something living. For the inherent reality (Ansich), the general result of the relation of the understanding to [221] the inner nature of things, is the distinguishing of what cannot be distinguished, or is the unity of what is distinguished. This unity, however, is, as we saw, just as much its recoil from itself; and this conception breaks asunder into the opposition of self-consciousness and life: the former is the unity for which the absolute unity of differences exists, the latter, however, is only this unity itself, so that the unity is not at the same time for itself. Thus, according to the independence possessed by consciousness, is the independence which its object in itself possesses. Self-consciousness, which is absolutely for itself, and characterizes its object directly as negative, or is primarily desire, will really, therefore, find through experience this object's independence. The determination of the principle of life(2) as obtained from the conception or general result with which we enter this new sphere, is sufficient to characterize it, without its nature being evolved further out of that notion. Its circuit is completed in the following moments. The essential element (Wesen) is infinitude as the supersession of all distinctions, the pure rotation on its own axis, itself at rest while being absolutely restless infinitude, the very self-dependence in which the differences brought out in the process are all dissolved, the simple reality of time, which in this self-identity has the solid form and shape of space. The differences, however, all the same hold as differences in this simple universal medium; for this universal flux exercises its negative activity merely in that it is the sublation of them; but it could not transcend them unless they had a subsistence of their own. Precisely this flux is itself, as self-identical independence, their subsistence or their substance, in which they accordingly are distinct members, parts which have being in their own right. Being no longer has the significance of mere [222] abstract being, nor has their naked essence the meaning of abstract universality: their being now is just that simple fluent substance of the pure movement within itself. The difference, however, of these members inter se consists, in general, in no other characteristic than that of the moments of infinitude, or of the mere movement itself. The independent members exist for themselves. To be thus for themselves, however, is really as much their reflexion directly into the unity, as this unity is the breaking asunder into independent forms. The unity is sundered because it is absolutely negative or infinite unity; and because it is subsistence, difference likewise has independence only in it. This independence of the form appears as a determinate entity, as what is for another, for the form is something disunited; and the cancelling of diremption takes effect to that extent through another. But this sublation lies just as much in the actual form itself. For just that flux is the substance of the independent forms. This substance, however, is infinite, and hence the form itself in its very subsistence involves diremption, or sublation of its existence for itself. If we distinguish more exactly the moments contained here, we see that we have as first moment the subsistence of the independent forms, or the suppression of what distinction inherently involves, viz. that the forms have no being per se, and no subsistence. The second moment, however, is the subjection of that subsistence to the infinitude of distinction. In the first moment there is the subsisting, persisting mode or form; by its being in its own right, or by its being in its determinate shape an infinite substance, it comes forward in opposition to the universal substance, disowns this fluent continuity with that substance, and insists that it is not dissolved in this universal element, but rather on the contrary preserves itself [223] by and through its separation from this its inorganic nature, and by the fact that it consumes this inorganic nature. Life in the universal fluid medium, quietly, silently shaping and moulding and distributing the forms in all their manifold detail, becomes by that very activity the movement of those forms, or passes into life qua Process. The mere universal flux is here the inherent being; the outer being, the "other", is the distinction of the forms assumed. But this flux, this fluent condition, becomes itself the other in virtue of this very distinction; because now it exists "for" or m relation to that distinction, which is self-conditioned and self-contained (an und für sich), and consequently is the endless, infinite movement by which that stable medium is consumed--is life as living. This inversion of character, however, is on that account again invertedness in itself as such. What is consumed is the essential reality: the Individuality, which preserves itself at the expense of the universal and gives itself the feeling of its unity with itself, precisely thereby cancels its contrast with the other, by means of which it exists for itself. The unity with self, which it gives itself, is just the fluent continuity of differences, or universal dissolution. But, conversely, the cancelling of individual subsistence at the same time produces the subsistence. For since the essence of the individual form-universal life-and the self-existent entity per se are simple substance, the essence, by putting the other within itself, cancels this its own simplicity or its essence, i.e. it sunders that simplicity; and this disruption of fluent undifferentiated continuity is just the setting up, the affirmation, of individuality. The simple substance of life, therefore, is the diremption of itself into shapes and forms, and at the same time the dissolution of these substantial differences; and the resolution of this diremption is just as much a process of diremption, of articulating. Thus both the [224] sides of the entire movement which were before distinguished, viz., the setting up of individual forms lying apart and undisturbed in the universal medium of independent existence, and the process of life - collapse into one another. The latter is just as much a formation of independent individual shapes, as it is a way of cancelling a shape assumed; and the former, the setting up of individual forms, is as much a cancelling as an articulation of them. The fluent, continuous element is itself only the abstraction of the essential reality, or it is actual only as a definite shape or form; and that it articulates itself is once more a breaking up of the articulated form, or a dissolution of it. The entire circuit of this activity constitutes Life. It is neither what is expressed to begin with, the immediate continuity and concrete solidity of its essential nature; nor the stable, subsisting form, the discrete individual which exists on its own account; nor the bare process of this form; nor again is it the simple combination of all these moments. It is none of these; it is the whole which develops itself, resolves its own development, and in this movement simply preserves itself. Since we started from the first immediate unity, and returned through the moments of form-determination, and of process, to the unity of both these moments, and thus again back to the first simple substance, we see that this reflected unity is other than the first. As opposed to that immediate unity, the unity expressed as a mode of being, this second is the universal unity, which holds all these moments sublated within itself. It is the simple genus, which in the movement of life itself does not exist in this simplicity for itself; but in this result points life towards what is other than itself, namely, towards Consciousness for which life exists as this unity or as genus. This other life, however, for which the genus as such exists and which is genus for itself, namely, self-con- [[225] sciousness, exists in the first instance only in the form of this simple, essential reality, and has for object itself qua pure Ego. In the course of its experience, which we are now to consider, this abstract object will grow in richness, and will be unfolded in the way we have seen in the case of life. The simple ego is this genus, or the bare universal, for which the differences are insubstantial, only by its being the negative essence of the moments which have assumed a definite and independent form. And self-consciousness is thus only assured of itself through sublating this other, which is presented to self-consciousness as an independent life; self-consciousness is Desire. Convinced of the nothingness of this other, it definitely affirms this nothingness to be for itself the truth of this other, negates the independent object, and thereby acquires the certainty of its own self, as true certainty, a certainty which it has become aware of in objective form. In this state of satisfaction, however, it has experience of the independence of its object. Desire and the certainty of its self obtained in the gratification of desire, are conditioned by the object; for the certainty exists through cancelling this other; in order that this cancelling may be effected, there must be this other. Self-consciousness is thus unable by its negative relation to the object to abolish it; because of that relation it rather produces it again, as well as the desire. The object desired is, in fact, something other than self-consciousness, the essence of desire; and through this experience this truth has become realized. At the same time, however, self-consciousness is likewise absolutely for itself, exists on its own account; and it is so only by sublation of the object; and it must come to feel its satisfaction, for it is the truth. On account of the independence of the object, therefore, it can only attain satisfaction when this object itself [226] effectually brings about negation within itself The object must per se effect this negation of itself, for it is inherently (an sich) something negative, and must be for the other what it is. Since the object is in its very self negation, and in being so is at the same time independent, it is Consciousness. In the case of life, which is the object of desire, the negation either lies in an other, namely, in desire, or takes the form of determinateness standing in opposition to an other external individuum indifferent to it, or appears as its inorganic general nature. The above general independent nature, however, in the case of which negation takes the form of absolute negation, is the genus as such or as self-consciousness. Self-consciousness attains its satisfaction only in another self-consciousness. It is in these three moments that the notion of self-consciousness first gets completed: (a) pure undifferentiated ego is its first immediate object. (b) This immediacy is itself, however, thoroughgoing mediation; it has its being only by cancelling the independent object, in other words it is Desire. The satisfaction of desire is indeed the reflexion of self-consciousness into itself, is the certainty which has passed into objective truth. But (c) the truth of this certainty is really twofold reflexion, the reduplication of self-consciousness. Consciousness has an object which implicates its own otherness or affirms distinction as a void distinction, and therein is independent. The individual form distinguished, which is only a living form, certainly cancels its independence also in the process of life itself; but it ceases along with its distinctive difference to be what it is. The object of self-consciousness, however, is still independent in this negativity of itself; and thus it is for itself genus, universal flux or continuity in the very distinctiveness of its own separate existence; it is a living self-consciousness.  A self-consciousness has before it a self-consciousness. [227] Only so and only then is it self-consciousness in actual fact; for here first of all it comes to have the unity of itself in its otherness. Ego which is the object of its notion, is in point of fact not "object". The object of desire, however, is only independent, for it is the universal, ineradicable substance, the fluent self-identical essential reality. When a self-consciousness is the object, the object is just as much ego as object. With this we already have before us the notion of Mind or Spirit. What consciousness has further to become aware of, is the experience of what mind is--this absolute substance, which is the unity of the different self-related and self-existent self-consciousnesses in the perfect freedom and independence of their opposition as component elements of that substance: Ego that is "we", a plurality of Egos, and "we" that is a single Ego. Consciousness first finds in self-consciousness - the notion of mind - its turning-point, where it leaves the parti-coloured show of the sensuous immediate, passes from the dark void of the transcendent and remote super-sensuous, and steps into the spiritual daylight of the present.  3. Jill Vance Buroker: Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. An introduction  The Metaphysical Deduction is the first stage in Kant’s argument for the categories, in which he identifies the pure concepts of the under- standing. The argument has two parts. First Kant establishes that the understanding has one function, which is to judge. He then identifies the pure concepts based on the forms of judgment, all the possible ways in which one can judge. The concepts of these judgment forms represent logical or syntactic features of judgment, such as subject and predicate. Thus a list of the forms of judgment yields a complete system of pure concepts in their logical use. In the second part Kant argues that these pure logical concepts also have a real use, as first- order or semantic concepts of the objects about which one judges. This follows from his analysis of judgment as synthesis, and the claim that the same synthetic operations that produce judgments also pro- duce unified representations of space and time from the manifold of pure intuition. Thus Kant concludes that the pure concepts express- ing logical features of judgment can represent categorial features of the objects being judged. This is the first step in arguing for synthetic a priori knowledge of the understanding. […] 1. Consciousness of conceptual unity presupposes a unitary con- sciousness. (A103–4) 2. The notion of an object of representation includes the idea of a necessary unity. (A104–6;A108–9) 3. Consciousness of objective unity requires a transcendental self- consciousness (as opposed to an empirical self-consciousness). Awareness of this identical self makes possible the notion of a transcendental object. (A106–7;A108) 4. A transcendental self-consciousness is consciousness of unity of synthesis by means of pure concepts. (A107–8) 5. Thus the pure concepts are presupposed in all objective awareness. (A109–11) […]Section 16: the original synthetic unity of apperception The deduction officially begins here, where the first sentence states the first premise: “The I think must be able to accompany all my representations; for otherwise something would be represented in me that could not be thought at all, which is as much as to say that the representation would either be impossible or else at least would be nothing forme” (B131–2). This sentence includes several claims. First, it is necessarily true of me, as a discursive intellect, that I can attach the “I think” to any state that represents something to me. Kant is not saying that in fact I always do this, only that it must be possible for me. If I could not, he says, the representation would be “nothing for me.” This means that states that represent something to me have two features: first, I can recognize them as my own states; and second, they have an intentional object of which I can be conscious. In other words, states that are representations for me have both subjective and objective aspects, which I can distinguish. Now the act of attaching the “I think” is the act of apperception or self-consciousness. Insofar as I recognize a representation as mine, I ascribe it to myself, and thus must be conscious of myself as the sub- ject of the state. As in the A edition, Kant calls this self-consciousness the transcendental unity of apperception (t.u.a.), and he distinguishes it from empirical self-consciousness. The t.u.a. is original because it is not derived from any other representation, but is a primitive fact of consciousness. It is pure rather than empirical because it has no dis- tinguishing content of its own. Kant says it is in all consciousness “one and the same, [and] cannot be accompanied by any further represen- tation” (B132). Recall that empirical self-consciousness is awareness of oneself as a particular subject. In addition to the “I think” it includes the specific content of inner sense. By contrast, “through the I, as a simple representation, nothing manifold is given” (B135). In a later section in the Dialectic, Kant calls the I of apperception “a single thing that cannot be resolved into a plurality of subjects, and hence a logically simple subject” (B407). Thus the t.u.a. is the bare thought of the numerical identity of the self as the thinking subject. In several passages Kant says this first premise is analytic: “this principle of the necessary unity of apperception is, to be sure, itself identical, thus an analytic proposition” (B135; also B138 and B407). Now it is important to understand exactly what claim is analytic, since from this premise Kant wants to derive the synthetic conclu- sion that the categories apply necessarily to any object of thought. The key is the scope of the statement, “The I think must be able to accompany all my representations.” Kant is claiming not that this statement is analytically true of all conscious beings, but rather that it is analytically true for any consciousness that can recognize its own representations. There are two relevant contrasts here. At B138–9 Kant distinguishes human consciousness from an intuitive intellect which generates its own manifold through its thinking. For such an intel- lect, there is no distinction between subjective and objective states, and so such an intellect would not be capable of this original self- consciousness. The second contrast is with animal perceivers, which lack intellectual capacities altogether and thus cannot recognize their representations as such. They might have a unified consciousness, but they would lack a unified self-consciousness. In other words, it is a brute fact (and therefore a synthetic truth) that human perceivers are discursive intellects who can recognize their own representations. But it is an analytic truth that any consciousness that can recognize its own representations can attach the “I think” to any of them. The second premise occurs at B133: “this thoroughgoing identity of the apperception of amanifold given in intuition contains a synthesis of the representations, and is possible only through the conscious- ness of this synthesis.” To say that the t.u.a. “contains” a synthesis means that in order to think the identity of the “I” one must con- nect a manifold of representations in thought. To recognize that it is the same “I” in “I think a” and in “I think b” one must connect the thoughts so that one thinks “I think a + b.” Kant’s strong claim here is that performing such a synthesis is a necessary condition for recognizing the identity of self-consciousness. In thinking one’s self- identity by ascribing representations to oneself, one both connects the representations and (at least implicitly) recognizes this connec- tion. At B133–4 Kant repeats his A edition claim that consciousness of one’s numerical identity cannot be derived from empirical self- consciousness. Instead, to recognize the empirical self requires one to unite the empiricalmanifold in a numerically identical consciousness. Thus empirical self-consciousness presupposes the t.u.a. The final point in section 16 concerns Kant’s claim at B133–4 that the apperception, like concepts, has both an analytical and a syn- thetic unity. This is easier to grasp if we begin with his discussion of concepts in the footnote. Here Kant argues that although both kinds of unity are essential to general representations, the synthetic unity provided by concepts is more fundamental than their analytical unity. The analytical unity of a concept is the unity it provides as a common characteristic of things. In thinking the concept “solidity,” we recognize it as a feature that belongs to potentially many things. In representing a feature common to its instances, the concept provides analytic unity. But these instances are complex things, which have many different properties. For example, they must also be spatially extended and have other physical properties. Kant says the objects analytically united under the concept “also have something different in themselves” (B134). And he concludes: “therefore only by means of an antecedently conceived possible synthetic unity can I represent to myself the analytical unity.” That is, to represent the objects that possess common characteristics, one must first represent the unity of the complex object. In its synthetic function, a concept unifies diverse features of the object. For example, the concept “chair” uni- fies the diverse properties such as shape, size, weight, and location that belong to a chair. Kant’s point is that although concepts contain both kinds of unity, synthetic unity is more fundamental because it is presupposed by analytical unity. At B133–4 he makes the same claim about the t.u.a.: “the analyt- ical unity of apperception is only possible under the presupposition of some synthetic one.” In other words, the “I think” as attached to each representation functions on one hand as a common character- istic. Abstracted from all content of representation, it has an analytic unity. But since this identical self-consciousness requires a synthesis of representations, the “I think” also produces a synthetic unity. In this respect it functions as the form of any thought in which one uni- fies different representations. For this reason Kant calls it “the highest point to which one must affix all use of the understanding . . . indeed this faculty is the understanding itself” (B134n). In short, the t.u.a. is the very basis, and thus the form, of all thinking. Section 17: the relation between the t.u.a. and the notion of an object In section 17 Kant establishes what Allison calls the “reciprocity the- sis,” namely that the t.u.a. is both necessary and sufficient for repre- senting objects. This is equivalent to showing both that whenever one performs the “I think” one thereby represents an object (or objective state of affairs), and that whenever one represents an object one thereby connects representations in the synthetic unity of apperception. It does not become clear until section 19 that this act is judgment. Once we put these points together we can get a better idea of what Kant means by the objective validity of representation. Kant’s entire argument in section 17 is contained in the second paragraph: Understanding is, generally speaking, the faculty of cognitions. These consist in the determinate relation of given representations to an object. An object, however, is that in the concept of which the manifold of a given intuition is united. Now, however, all unification of representations requires unity of consciousness in the synthesis of them. Consequently the unity of consciousness is that which alone constitutes the relation of representations to an object, thus their objective validity, and consequently is that which makes them into cognitions and on which even the possibility of the understanding rests. (B137) Let us take this argument point by point. First Kant describes the understanding as the faculty of cogni- tion, which implies that the mere data given in intuition are not in themselves cognitions. Next he defines a cognition as a “determinate relation of given representation to an object,” which simply means a representation of a determinate object. His point is that the function of the understanding is to know objects. Implicit is the idea that at the first order, the representations are those given in the manifold of intuition. Next comes the key to this section, Kant’s definition of an object as “that in the concept of which the manifold of a given intuition is united.” This tortured sentence in effect defines an object as whatever is thought as a unified manifold by means of a concept. The object here is the object of thought; the definition establishes that it must be a complex whose parts (the manifold) are unified by a concept. Drawing on section 15, the next sentence states that all unified representations contain consciousness of unity. From sec- tion 16 we know that consciousness of unity is based on the t.u.a. Thus, Kant concludes, it is the t.u.a. that confers objective valid- ity on representations. That is, the act of bringing representations to the “I think” is necessary and sufficient for making them into representations of an object. Put less technically, Kant has argued that when one unifies some manifold by means of a concept, one thereby renders themanifold thinkable as an object or gives it objective validity. At B137–8 Kant emphasizes that the mere manifold given in intu- ition does not by itself represent an object, but provides only the data for cognition: “the mere form of outer sensible intuition, space, is not yet cognition at all; it only gives the manifold of intuition a priori for a possible cognition.” To cognize some spatial region requires con- necting the spatial manifold in some determinate way by means of a concept. Thus to represent a line in space one must delineate the part of space making up the line by means of the concept of a line. Kant concludes that this consciousness of synthetic unity is required of all cognitions, and thus applies to any manifold given in intuition “in order to become an object for me.” It is important to notice the subtle shift in this last sentence, which claims that the object is the (mani- fold of ) intuition itself. In other words, this analysis has taken place on the second-order level, where the objects (of thought) are one’s representations (the manifold given to one in intuition). At the end of this chapter we shall see the significance of this aspect for Kant’s response to skepticism. For now, let us summarize the steps of the argument in sections 16 and 17: 1. It is necessarily true of humans as discursive intellects that they can attach the “I think” to any of their representations, and, by doing so, express the numerical identity of self-consciousness. 2. Attaching the “I think” is possible only insofar as one connects one’s self-ascribed representations by means of synthetic acts. 3. Any synthetic unity of representations requires unification under a concept. 4. Any manifold unified under a concept counts as a thought of an object. 5. Therefore, thinking of an object is necessary for the t.u.a. 6. Therefore, the t.u.a. is a sufficient condition for representing an object. Section 18: objective vs. subjective unity Here Kant distinguishes an objectively valid unity of representations from a unity that has only subjective validity, as a way to introduce the notion of judgment in section 19. The first kind is the unity con- tained in the thought of an object; the second kind is characteristic of a mere association of representations. Unfortunately Kant con- fuses two different notions of subjective validity. He begins section 18 by contrasting the objective unity of the t.u.a. with “the subjec- tive unity of consciousness, which is a determination of inner sense” (B139). By the latter hemeans amere association of representations in consciousness: “One person combines the representation of a certain word with one thing, another with something else; and the unity of consciousness in that which is empirical is not, with regard to that which is given, necessarily and universally valid” (B140). The point is that although a mere association of representations has a kind of unity in consciousness, it is not a thought unity. Association occurs when one representation immediately triggers another in time. It depends on memory and psychological processes arising from what Hume called the “customary conjunction” of representations. For this reason Kant assigns it to the reproductive imagination at B141. To say that an association is only subjectively valid means that it does not produce a representation of an object. (It is also subjective in the secondary sense that the association of representations depends on contingent facts about the subject.) When Kant calls this type of connection “a determination of inner sense” he means that it represents a temporal ordering of the actual contents of consciousness. But the connection is not conceptual; a mere association does not represent an object, and hence lacks objective validity. Associated perceptions are united temporally in consciousness, but do not produce a unity of self-consciousness. Now one can of course take an association as an object of thought by reflecting on it. In recognizing the sequence as one in which one representation triggers another, one thereby con- fers objective unity on it. This is equivalent to taking a unity in consciousness as a unity for consciousness. Clearly, however, the abil- ity to associate representations does not entail the ability to represent the association as such. Kant thinks that animals possess the former ability but lack the intellectual capacities for the latter. Unfortunately, in this passage Kant confuses the subjectivity of an association of perceptions with that of the empirical unity of apper- ception. The latter, as we have seen, is awareness of oneself as a particular subject. Empirical self-consciousness includes the content of inner sense, but is not a mere association of perceptions, since it represents the self as an object. Although empirical apperception varies in content by subject, and thus is subjective in the secondary sense, it nevertheless contains an objective unity of representations. Thus Kant is mistaken to use empirical apperception to exemplify a non-objective unity, which is the kind of subjectivity relevant to the deduction here. Section 19: objective unity and judgment In section 19 Kant argues that representing an object is equivalent to judging. He begins by complaining that the standard definition of a judgment as a relation between two concepts fails to specify the nature of the relation. At B141–2 he says that in judgment one brings a manifold to the objective unity of consciousness. In the simplest case of a categorical judgment, this objective relation is represented by the copula “is” connecting the subject- and predicate-concepts. 13 Now to say that judgment possesses a necessary unity is not to deny that there are empirical or contingent judgments. The objective unity of the judgment, even if empirical, resides in the fact that judgments represent assertible thoughts about objects or objective states of affairs. Even if it is only a contingent truth that my cat is orange, the judgment “Buroker’s cat is orange” unifies diverse representations to produce an assertible claim about an object. Unfortunately Kant’s examples at the end of the section obscure this point, since he tries to express an association of perceptions by the conditional judgment “If I carry a body, I feel a pressure of weight.” By his own argument, however, once one judges an association, one has thereby unified the representations in the objective unity of apperception. As Allison points out, Kant’s theory of synthesis entails that all judgments confer objective validity on representations, even if the objects of judgment are “subjective” states. This step clarifies the notion of objective validity, for unlike asso- ciations of representations, judgments are true or false. For a repre- sentation to have objective validity is for it to be capable of having a truth value. What Kant has shown, then, is that subjects who can recognize their own representations must be able to ascribe them to themselves by the “I think.” This act is synthesis, which connects a given manifold of representations in the (objective) unity of self- consciousness. But synthesis is equivalent to judging; in judging one conceives a manifold as related in a way that can be asserted to obtain. Since assertions are true or false, Kant has argued that the t.u.a. is both necessary and sufficient for producing representations that have objective validity, that are assertible. The objects here are objects of judgment or thought. There is as yet no reference to spatiotemporal objects of human intuition. […] Sections 24–5: the paradox of self-knowledge To complete this discussion, let us look at Kant’s view of self- knowledge in sections 24 and 25.AtB152–3 he describes the “para- dox” of self-knowledge as following from the Aesthetic doctrine that in inner sense we are presented to ourselves “only as we appear to ourselves, not as we are in ourselves, since we intuit ourselves only as we are internally affected, which seems to be contradictory, since we would have to relate to ourselves passively.” The paradox follows from transcendental idealism. Because space and time are merely subjec- tive forms of sensibility, all objects intuited in space and time are only appearances, and not things in themselves. This applies equally to the empirical self, given in inner sense. Accordingly, we can no more intuit the self in itself than we do physical objects in themselves. In the Analytic, however, Kant has shown that the “I” that thinks is active and spontaneous. Judging is an activity consisting of synthetic operations the “I” performs on the manifold given in intuition. So it seems paradoxical to claim both that the “I” must be active and that it can know itself only as it passively appears to itself. Kant’s solution is to deny both that the “I think” is a cognition of the self, and that we can cognize the thinking self. In transcen- dental self-consciousness, Kant says, “I am conscious of myself not as I appear to myself, nor as I am in myself, but only that I am. This representation is a thinking, not an intuiting”(B157). Self-awareness in the t.u.a. is not a cognition of the self as an object, but a merely formal representation of one’s existence as thinking. (This is why Kant dis- agrees with Descartes’s view that the “I” of the cogito must be a mental substance.) This self-awareness is devoid of the intuition required to distinguish oneself from other objects and thus to represent oneself as a particular object. In his footnote at B157 Kant says, “The I think expresses the act of determining my existence.The existence is thereby already given, but the way in which I am to determine it, i.e., the manifold that I am to posit in myself as belonging to it, is not yet thereby given.” And at B158n he denies that we can intuit the activity of thinking: “Now I do not have yet another self-intuition, which would give the determining in me, of the spontaneity of which alone I am conscious . . . thus I cannot determine my existence as that of a self-active being, rather I merely represent the spontaneity of my thought.” Thus Kant dispels the paradox by denying that the t.u.a. is a cognition of the thinking self. It is only a formal awareness of the activity of thinking, identical for all discursive intelligences. Since the sensibility yields only appearances, we can know ourselves only as we appear to ourselves, not as things in themselves. Although this too seems paradoxical, the “I” of “I think” is neither an appearance nor a thing in itself, but a condition of all thought. Summary The Transcendental Deduction contains Kant’s central justification for applying the categories to objects of experience. The A edi- tion version argues that apprehending the data of intuition succes- sively requires the imagination to reproduce previously apprehended representations, which presupposes concepts of the understanding. Although this version introduces Kant’s theory of synthesis and the t.u.a., it does not link the categories to judgment. The significantly revised B edition version corrects this defect, arguing that the cate- gories are required to represent objects of both thought and percep- tion. By analyzing the notion of an object in terms of judgment, Kant links the categories to the logical forms of judgment identified earlier. Thus he defends the application of pure concepts expressed in syn- thetic a priori principles to the objects of experience. Because these metaphysical concepts and principles have their seat in the subject, they apply only to appearances and not to things in themselves. But because they are necessary for experiencing objects, they represent real features of appearances, and thus ground empirical knowledge. Like the forms of intuition, they represent transcendentally ideal but empirically real features of experience. Introduction to German Idealism 5/26 - Robbert Veen at www.wiziq.com 43