As this site is named after a Kantian concept, I thought it would be appropriate to post an article from my own days as a philosophy student, way back when. This particular selection is from a very lengthy commentary upon Kant’s own Critique of Pure Reason that I wrote while involved in a detailed study of the text. The selection was chosen because it is the first clear discussion of the in-itself found in the text.

I should note that my writing on this topic has been known to be an exceptionally powerful cure for insomnia. I post it here more as a symbolic act than anything else.

Enjoy, or not…

Comments Upon Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
Transcendental Logic and Transcendental Analytic through Book I, Analytic of Concepts

by Roderick A. Carder-Russell

The Transcendental Aesthetic begins to take on form and function when placed against the subsequent section, the Transcendental Logic. In the Aesthetic we set as our object of inquiry the method of sensible intuition, concerning ourselves with questions regarding how we can know objects, have experience and thus gain knowledge through sensible intuition. We ended the section with questions as to the possibility of any pure a priori synthetic judgements. Seeking an answer to this question leads us naturally into the self, and our method of understanding. Thus we are left facing the function of our own understanding, which is the subject matter of the Logic.

As with the Aesthetic, when we speak of knowledge, or in this case general logic, we make the distinction between pure and applied (empirical), the former being by necessity a priori, the exercise of the understanding as abstracted from all empirical conditions. This Kant calls, quite naturally, Pure Logic. Such a pure logic must be distinguished from a pure understanding, which we may take issue with and argue against, at least prior to our thorough examination of the pure logic. Pure logic is most appropriately defined as the canon of understanding, the rules of the understanding in general, not the understanding itself. Thus, its object of study is the mere form of thought, that which makes possible any understanding.

Having laid the groundwork and guidelines for what it is we shall inquire after, an understanding of the form of understanding, and how, not empirically, but purely a priori according to our prerequisite work in the Aesthetic, Kant then directs us towards what he titles the Transcendental Logic. If the General Pure Logic is the canon of the understanding, then the transcendental logic must be the representation of that very canon. Whereas the logic itself, even the pure logic, is closely associated with the objects of the aesthetic through appearances, the transcendental logic is very far removed from any empirical objects, as it’s objects are representations themselves, and representations of objects that themselves are given a priori at that. Kant tells us that intuitions are only representations, and so they are. We can never know an object in-itself, for all objects of the outer sense are first ordered by our projection of space, and then internally by time, and only then is the sensible object given over to our sensible intuition, whereupon it may be combined with concepts in the understanding, allowing us to see how even to this high level, the object is still merely a representation. Are concepts themselves, being given a priori, then entitled transcendental? Kant gives us an emphatic “No”. Only those concepts which relate a priori to objects that are not of empirical or aesthetic origin, that is, representations of our a priori conceptions, serving as objects of our intuition, may be titled transcendental. The concepts which treat of entirely internal objects belong to the science of Transcendental Logic.

Having thus isolated the understanding, and having declared transcendental knowledge as our goal, we must further distinguish between analytic and dialectic modes of inquiry. General logic itself is divided into such categories, but here it is transcendental logic that is our sole concern. It may however be appropriate to define the terms first in their use as applied to general logic.

Analytic logic is the resolution of “the whole formal procedure of the understanding and reason into its elements, and exhibits them as principles of all logical criticism of our knowledge”. Kant further states:

Its rules must be applied in the examination and appraising of the form of all knowledge before we proceed to determine whether their content contains positive truth in respect to their object.

Thus we are indeed performing an analysis of the forms of knowledge itself. When such principle knowledge is applied in obtaining “objective” assertions, it is serving as if it wer a tool, and organon, and thus we call it when treated in this manner dialectic.

Transcendental logic is also divided into such categories, analytic and dialectic, but here we will be pursuing a transcendental analytic rather than a dialectic, for it is the form of all knowledge, and specifically within transcendental logic the form of all pure a priori knowledge, without their content, that we are interested in obtaining. It again must be stressed that such knowledge is of the forms themselves, and thus occupies a higher metaphysical plane than simply the application of such forms and concepts. What we are striving after is a consciousness of that which makes thought possible, not the thought itself, and it is thus a self-consciousness, as will be shown by Kant.

Analytic of Concepts

What are concepts? We know from the Aesthetic that we have a certain sensibility that is receptive to objects and which gives its sensation over to intuition. Concepts are part of the understanding. The understanding is “non-sensible”, and thus clearly not a faculty of intuition. Concepts, being part of the understanding, are themselves non-sensible.

Kant tells us that we have only two modes of knowledge, being intuition and concepts. Knowledge that is yielded by understanding by means of concepts, being not intuited, is titled discursive.

Intuitions rest on affections, the act of being affected, by the matter of objects given over through the sensibility. Concepts rest on functions, the “unity of the act of bringing various representations under one common representation”, a placement of representations into their respective categories, of which we will speak later.

If intuitions are based upon impressions, or the receptivity of the sensibility, concepts are based upon spontaneity of mind.

The understanding makes judgements by manipulation of concepts, which themselves may be synthesized from other concepts, as well as empirical judgements based upon immediate representations of objects (insofar as we can really speak of a representation being immediate, for it is always mediated by at least space and time). We therefore see that judgements are mediate to objects.

There is a certain form of the understanding which all concepts fall within, and as we will see, the pure and a priori concepts immediately fall under this form. It is as follows.

I. Quantity of Judgements: Universal; Particular; Singular
II. Quality of Judgements: Affirmative; Negative; Infinite
III. Relation: Categorical; Hypothetical; Disjunctive
IV. Modality: Problematic; Assertoric; Apodeictic

Kant tells us that our a priori pure concepts of the understanding are synthesized from these very forms. These concepts are as follows:

I. Of Quantity: Unity; Plurality; Totality
II. Of Quality: Reality; Negation; Limitation
III. Of Relation: Of Inherence and Subsistence; Of Causality and Dependence; Of Community
IV. Of Modality: Possibility – Impossibility Existence – Non-existence Necessity – Contingency

One will note that the third concept in each category is discovered by a synthesis of the first two. Does this then mean that it is not an original and pure concept, but rather derivative of the first two? By no means does Kant want to say that. The third member comes from the act of understanding the first two, yet it was always present, simply not understood.

We are told that we can further subdivide these categories into two broader categories, the first being the category of mathematical categories, the second of dynamical. The two mathematical categories have no correlates, that is, they do not concern themselves with objects themselves, but only objects of intuition, either pure or empirical. The dynamical categories are concerned with the existence of objects, either in their relation to one another or to the understanding. Kant does not delineate which categories fall under mathematical and empirical, but it seems evident that the categories “Of Quantity” and “Of Quality” would be contained in the mathematical, and the remaining two would fall under dynamical.

In considering the dynamical category, we are immediately struck by the idea that such categories have as their concern the objects themselves. How is such concern possible? Isn’t every experience to some extent mediated? How then may we come to know an object in-itself. We quite simply can not. It is my understanding that the concepts of the dynamical category help to form concepts of an object in-itself, but this clearly is a far cry from the actual object. I believe, based upon what has been stated thus far, that this is as close as we can come to actually understanding an object in-itself. But again, it is still a representation of the object, and so we fall just short of the goal. Kant must be making this statement with the understanding that his readers will correctly realize that he does not mean strictly what he says, and is using the term only loosely.

Having laid bare the pure a priori concepts of the understanding, we must now attempt a transcendental deduction of these pure concepts, that is, attempt to explain the manner in which concepts can relate a priori to objects. This is to be distinguished from an empirical deduction, which treats of how concepts are acquired through experience.

We are in possession thus far of two types of concepts which relate a priori to objects, those of Space and Time, and those of the Categories of Understanding. The former belong to sensibility, and thus to the Aesthetic, the latter to understanding, and thus to the Logic. Any deduction of the latter, being pure and inner, must by necessity be transcendental.

Now, in speaking of how these pure concepts of understanding relate a priori to objects, it must be understood that these categories do not represent the conditions under which objects are given in intuition. The categories are not concerned with intuition, and the only conditions under which objects of outer experience are given are that of space and then ultimately time. Objects may be presented to us without being necessarily related to the functions of understanding. However, in order to think of or understand such appearances, such representations, we must relate them to the categories of understanding, and that relation must by definition exist prior to the object being understood, which would be prior to true experience, which gives us an a priori relation. It is not necessary for the object to be represented, but to be represented in any intelligible way it is. As a result of this, Kant tells us that a synthetic representation can meet its object in one of two ways:

1. The object alone must make the representation possible, or
2. The representation alone must make the object possible.

The former in merely empirical. The objects existence is not dependent upon its representation, but for anything intelligible to come of it, for the object to be understood, it is dependent upon the representation. Thus, an object does not contain any meaning in-itself. Kant here poses and answers in the affirmative, as shown above, “are a priori concepts antecedent conditions under which alone anything can be thought as object in general?”.

We have now demonstrated that all empirical knowledge has as its foundation a priori concepts, and the objective validity of the pure concepts of understanding is shown insofar as all experience is made possible through them.

What would an a priori concept that did not relate to experience be? It would only be the logical form of a concept, not the concept itself through which objects are thought, as it would be empty of content. A pure a priori concept can not contain anything empirical. But would that then make it a form rather than a concept? Here Kant is doing something very interesting. He is alleging that you need not have an experience to have a concept that is based upon experience, that is, upon a possible experience. In fact, you may possess a concept that allows you to imagine, in accordance with that concept, that which is not experiencable, but is nonetheless based upon experience, one which you need not have. It is obvious to anyone that all of our concepts must be based upon possible experience, for if they were not, they need not have arisen, we would never have developed them. A pure concept of understanding is one in which everything empirical has been abstracted out of it, and Kant is now making possible a sort of fusion between extreme idealism and extreme empiricism. All concepts come from experience, the empiricist view, but it is only from the nature of experience for Kant, thus making possible concepts from experience, without any experience, only the possibility of experience, thus placing him in a more idealistic position.

All knowledge (and thus experience) comes from a combination of spontaneity (a faculty of mind) with receptivity (of the sensibility), which serves as the ground of a three-fold synthesis of apprehension, reproduction and recognition.

The synthesis of apprehension is the holding together of the manifold of space and, ultimately, time. All of our sensibility is given to us by means of intuition, but is ordered by the pure a priori concepts of space and time. Ultimately, time is the responsible entity, as all sensation is ordered by inner sense. But what exactly happens in this inner sense? What does time do? Time provides us with a backdrop by which to recognize that appearances occur one after another. But this manifold of time must itself be processed, or synthesized, into a unity, a whole, otherwise we could not recognize the succession of representations in time as part of one and the same. This synthesis of the manifold we call the synthesis of apprehension.

Now, we must be able to reproduce this unified manifold of appearances, otherwise, we could have no experience, let alone reflect upon it. As with the un-synthesized manifold, we would simply lose all representations that we had gained. The manifold would be synthesized once, and then lost for all eternity. That is clearly not so, for we can and indeed must reproduce within us the unified manifold, and this is accomplished in the synthesis of reproduction in imagination, or by the transcendental faculty of imagination.

Finally, we must synthesize that repeatable representation into a concept, and this is done in the third stage mention above.

But what is doing all of this ordering? First we have the manifold of time being synthesized into a whole, then it is repeatable, and finally leads to experience and knowledge, but to what end? These faculties are not understanding in themselves, yet clearly, I understand this unity. What can this be attributed to? Kant therefore gives us the faculty of Transcendental Apperception.

It must be possible for the “I think” to accompany all of my representations, for it is the only way in which we can know a representation as “mine”.

We can have a representation prior to all thought simply by having an intuition, and yet, this “I think” accompanies even that. Thus, it must be ever present. The manifold of intuition must have a necessary and fundamental relation to the “I think”. Our entire investigation has been one of analysis, and analysis itself presupposes a prior synthesis. How would this synthesis be formed? By the transcendental self, known through transcendental apperception. “The principle of apperception is the highest principle in the whole sphere of human knowledge”.

The manifold of space is ordered and folded into time, which is synthesized into a unity and presented to intuition, which then is able to further synthesize this unified manifold into applicable concepts of the understanding and ultimately into a unified system of experience and knowledge. But what faculty is itself responsible for the overall unity? We have explored all of the faculties and functions themselves, but we still have not reached the level on which we have true knowledge and a grasp of that knowledge. What is the overall unifying principle for Kant? It is the transcendental apperception, the “I think”, that to which all of our knowledge and experience is presented.

What we will discover is that the transcendental apperception, though the unifying principle of all, that which gives birth to all of our thus far delineated faculties and functions, is itself but a piece of something much greater, the true self. However, given the nature of our faculties, both sensible and logical, in the face of such a self-referent representations, we can not perceive ourselves in our totality and only appear as an appearance to ourselves, not as a thing in-itself. We are faced with the same problem that we come up against in the case of objects “out there”. All that I can know in my transcendental apperception is that I am, not what I am, nor how I am. Have we thus run up against an impenetrable wall beyond which we can not proceed? Within Kant’s system, I believe we have. However, it remains to be discovered if we can possess knowledge that is fundamentally different in nature than that which is set forth by Kant.