• _db
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    I decided to restart Kant's Transcendental Idealism by Henry E. Allison, as I found I had not taken sufficiently good notes for me to fully understand the text. This topic is meant to be a place for myself (and anyone else) to share their notes, thoughts and questions on the book. I will periodically update this as I proceed through the book.

    For reference, I am reading the first edition, not the second edition, because the first edition was cheaper, and I'm also a sucker for old books. But feel free to use either edition here, just please let everyone know what edition you are using so we avoid any unnecessary confusion.
  • _db
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    Chapter 1: An Introduction to the Problem

    Summary:

    What Allison calls the "standard picture" of Kant's transcendental idealism is roughly defined by P. F. Stawson as the doctrine that reality is supersensible, and that we can have no knowledge of it. Kant is interpreted as being an extreme skeptic, because his position is taken to entail that we can only know what things seem like to us, and not how they really are independent of us.

    Allison shows that this interpretation fails to distinguish between the empirical and the transcendental version of ideality/reality, and appearances/things-in-themselves.

    Allison offers three senses in which the ideal/real can be understood:

    The general sense of these words are:
    • Ideality: mind-dependence; in the mind (in uns)
    • Reality: mind-independence; external to the mind (ausser uns)

    The empirical sense of these words are:
    • Ideality: private data of an individual mind
    • Reality: intersubjective spatial-temporal objects of human experience

    The transcendental (the philosophical reflection of experience) sense of these words are:
    • Ideality: universal, necessary, a priori conditions of human knowledge, e.g. space and time, the forms of sensibility
    • Reality: referring to an independence to any appeal to these conditions

    From these definitions, Kant can be said to hold that empirically real objects and transcendentally ideal, and that a transcendentally real object is non-sensible (noumena).

    Allison also offers two levels in which appearances/things-in-themselves can be used:

    The empirical level (the "language of experience"):
    • Appearances: "mental", as an object seems
    • Thing-in-itself: "physical", as it "really is"

    The transcendental level:
    • Appearances: conforming to human sensibility
    • Thing-in-itself: independent of the conditions of human sensibility

    He then goes on to define what an "epistemic condition" is: it is a condition or rule that must be conformed to in order for an object to be a representation. It is an "objectivating" condition. These are not logical conditions of thought, like the principle of contradiction, which demonstrates the difference between general logic and transcendental logic. They are also not "conditions of possible experience", like a brain, an eye or an ear, nor are they psychological conditions, like habit or custom. They also are not ontological conditions of being a thing in themselves, like the Newtonian vision of the substantiality of space and time.

    Questions/Thoughts:
    • While it is certainly possible that Kant has been greatly misunderstood in the standard picture of his transcendental idealism, I think it may also be possible that Kant himself did not fully understand his own position, which could explain why he frequently seems to use misleading terms like "mere appearances" which are frequently used to support the standard picture.
  • _db
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    Chapter 2: Transcendental Realism and Transcendental Idealism

    Summary:

    Allison claims that there are two metaphilosophical positions that one can hold: transcendental realism, and transcendental idealism, and that they are mutually exhaustive and exclusive. While individual metaphysical positions may differ in details, they must belong to one of these two metaphilosophical positions. Indeed, Kant claims that all metaphysical theories before him, such as those of Descartes, Leibniz, Malebranche, Berkeley, Hume and Locke, can all be defined as holding a common prejudice which defines transcendental realism. Kant also holds that it is this common prejudice which has caused every one of them to fail.

    Allison begins by elaborating on what is meant by transcendental realism:

    The common prejudice of transcendental realism is that it confuses representations (appearances) with things-in-themselves. The transcendental realist takes the spatio-temporality of objects' externality to entail the independence of these objects from the subjective conditions of human knowledge; they hold that space and time are aspects of objects as they are in themselves. In other words, they conflate the transcendental sense of actuality with the empirical sense. Kant claims that transcendental realism entails empirical idealism; which is basically an external world Cartesian skepticism.

    There are other conflations of terms in transcendental realist theories:
    • Berkeleian ideas and Humean impressions are given to the mind as they are in-themselves and thus confuse the appearances in the empirical sense with the things-in-themselves in the transcendental sense.
    • Cartesian dualism regards appearances (in the transcendental sense) with things-in-themselves (also in the transcendental sense)

    Then, Allison says that transcendental realism can be further understood in terms of what he calls the "theocentric" model of knowledge. This model has it that human knowledge can be compared to a theoretical "absolute" or "infinite" intelligence which knows objects are they are in-themselves, i.e. a "God's eye view". This is well demonstrated in the Leibnizian doctrine of the analyticity of all propositions; for any true proposition, according to Leibniz, the predicate is contained in the subject, and that any syntheticity of truths is from the limits of humans and not a nature of the truth itself. In this way, Leibniz can be said to have "intellectualized" appearances.

    Another example of theocentrism in transcendental realism is that of Locke's nominal and real essences, which can be understood by the analogy of the outside and the inside of a clocktower; the outside is merely the appearance, while the inside holds all of the gears and wires that the clocktower is made of. For Locke, human knowledge is limited to some outward appearances. Divine knowledge is not a difference in kind but a difference in amount; God simply has more perception than humans, he is able to see the entire clocktower.

    All of these examples show that the transcendental realist share a common assumption: that "genuine" knowledge is of things-in-themselves. But transcendental realism fails to recognize the a priori conditions of knowledge, and it also fails to make the transcendental distinction for appearances and things-in-themselves which leads to its theocentric model of knowledge.

    Allison then goes on to explain transcendental idealism. Just like transcendental realism, transcendental idealism is a metaphilosophical standpoint, not a straightforward metaphysical doctrine, although there are metaphysical consequences of transcendental idealism. It is the opposite of transcendental realism, in that it recognizes a priori conditions of knowledge, makes the transcendental distinction and holds an anthropocentric model of knowledge; the shift from theocentric to anthropocentric is what Kant called his philosophical "Copernican revolution". Kant's transcendental idealism is "critical" or "formal", in the sense that it focuses on the conditions and not the contents of objects of experience.

    Kant describes transcendental idealism as the doctrine that

    everything intuited in space and time, and therefore all objects of any experience possible to us, are nothing but appearances, that is, mere representations, which, in the manner in which they are represented, as extended beings, or as a series of alterations, have no independent existence outside our thoughts.

    Thus transcendental idealism holds that objects in space and time have no independent existence from us in this manner (of space and time). It is not the claim that objects have no independent existence from us, but that such an existence cannot be attributed to them in the manner in which they are represented (in space and time, the forms or conditions of human sensibility).

    The Copernican revolution, or the flip from theocentrist to anthropocentrist knowledge, entails the belief that objects must conform to knowledge, and not vice-versa. While theocentrism holds that true thoughts are those which conform to the "real" nature of the objects of perception, anthropocentrism holds that it is the objects that conform to the nature of the mind. In other words, the way objects are represented reflects the manner of the mind, not of the objects in-themselves. And, as noted earlier, transcendental realism (with its theocentric model of knowledge) is incapable of explaining how we have any knowledge at all, which leads it to skepticism or empirical idealism.

    Finally, Allison clarifies how Kant understands the term "actuality" by comparing his theory of transcendental idealism with modern "phenomenalism". Superficially, Kant holds the same thing the phenomenalists do, that first-order statements of unperceived things can be translated into second-order statements about possible perception. But he differs from phenomenalism in that he holds that the possibility of a perceptive state is only a consequence, and not a criteria, of actuality. Whereas Berkeleian idealism holds that only what is perceived is actual, and phenomenalism holds that what is perceived and what could be perceived is actual, Kant holds that the actual is that which is in conformance to the a priori principles of human knowledge. Thus an unseen force, like gravity or magnetism, can be considered actual, even though it not directly perceived, because that is a conclusion that we can draw based on the experiences that we do have, which conform to these formal conditions of knowledge.

    Questions/Thoughts:
    • Allison uses the terms "outer" and "inner" sense, but only ever explicitly defines outer sense/perception as empirically external, spatial objects. What is inner sense, is that space and time?
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    Chapter 3: The Antinomy of Pure Reason

    I found this chapter to be more challenging than the previous two. There are a few areas that I am not confident I fully understand. I need to let these ideas digest before raising any questions, so only the summary is given.

    Summary:

    Kant uses the Antinomies to demonstrate how reason contradicts itself when thinking about certain questions. He attempts to show that there are two equally compelling but incompatible answers to each question. Kant claims that both answers to each are false and that the questions themselves rely on presuppositions derived from transcendental realism. More importantly, Kant says that the questions naturally arise from the transcendental realistic position, and so if the answers to the questions are all false (leading to a contradiction), then the questions and the presuppositions that ground them (transcendental realism) are also false, which entails that transcendental idealism is true.

    Both thesis and antithesis for each question are apagogic. Kant believes that the equal success of each position in refuting each other demonstrates the impossibility of a solution to the conflict that respects the transcendental realistic (dogmatic) assumptions underlying it. These conflicts of reason arise from its demand for an absolute totality of conditions (grounds) for any conditioned (given). This “intellectual categorical imperative” is a logical requirement for a complete justification or explanation for every assertion. Every true proposition must have a ground. Kant claims that problems arise when this logical requirement to “think the whole” is applied to states of affairs, where the totality is the world of space and time.

    Only the temporal aspect of the First Antinomy is discussed by Allison in his book. With respect to the world of space and time, Kant says there are two mutually exclusive options when considering its conditions: either there is some first element, limit or beginning, or the inquiry into its conditions extends ad infinitum. These are the thesis and the antithesis, respectively; the temporal world is either finite or infinite.

    Allison emphasizes that Kant is focused on the world, and not space and time themselves. The world, according to Kant, is “the object of all possible experience”; it is not merely the whole of representation, but the actual representation of the whole as a united totality. It is not just the thought of an aggregate of items, but the thought of these items as constituting a whole (Ganze).

    The thesis (for the finitude of the world) is broken down by Allison into six steps:

    1.) Assume the world has no beginning in time.
    2.) It follows that up to the present, an eternity has elapsed.
    3.) This means an infinite number of successive events has occurred, i.e. an infinite series has been completed.
    4.) According to the “transcendental concept of infinitude”, an infinite series can never be completed through successive synthesis.
    5.) Therefore the concept of an infinite series of events in the world that have passed away (been completed) is self-contradictory.
    6.) So there must have been a beginning of the world in time, a first event.

    Allison discusses various critiques of this argument, raised by philosophers like Russell and Stawson. He provides responses to these critiques, and while the issues discussed might be interesting to some, I was not particularly curious about them but was more interested in the later things that Allison brings up.

    In the Second Antinomy, Kant distinguishes between a totum syntheticum and a totum analyticum. A totum syntheticum is a whole that presupposes its parts. The question of whether a totum syntheticum is possible is equivalent to the question of whether a complete collection of its parts is conceivable. A totum analyticum is a whole, the parts of which are only conceivable with reference to that whole. Space and time are tota analytica, but the material universe in space and time is conceived as a totum syntheticum.

    The alleged contradiction of the infinitistic position is in its application of the concept of infinite to the material universe. Since it is a totum syntheticum, the thought of a complete enumeration or synthesis of its parts contradicts the thought of the inexhaustibility of the infinite. Thus there are two incompatible rules for thinking the same object, amounting to a contradiction. Because the world is taken to be a totum syntheticum, it cannot be a series extending infinitely into the past, but instead it must have a first moment.

    However, the presupposition here is that the world is a totum syntheticum. This is the transcendental realist assumption that is rejected by transcendental idealism.

    The antithesis asserts that the world can have no beginning in time and no limit in space. Allison breaks it down as follows:
    1.) Assume the world has a beginning in time.
    2.) The concept of a temporal beginning presupposes a preceding time before the thing exists.
    3.) Therefore it is necessary to think of an empty time before the world existed.
    4.) But such points of time cannot be distinguished from one another.
    5.) A world cannot meaningfully be said to have come into existence at one time rather than another time if both times are empty.
    6.) So we cannot meaningfully say the world came into being in time at all, therefore the world is infinite with respect to past time.

    Step 6 is a non-sequitur and Kant recognizes it as such, but the point does follow given the fact that the world must be either finite or infinite.

    As with the thesis, Allison discusses objections that have been raised by people like Strawson and Bennett. But again, as it’s clear throughout the chapter, even with the rebuttals given by Allison, neither the thesis nor the antithesis are convincingly sound. I think they are less important to the overall understanding of Kant’s transcendental idealism, so I won’t discuss them much here.

    To summarize though, Allison says that the conjunction of a first event with a first time is incoherent. An event is defined as a change of state of a thing in time, so the first event designates the earliest change to have occurred in the universe. The problem is that if the first event occurred at the first time, there was no prior state in which the thing existed. An event not preceded by a time in which the world was in a different state is incoherent. Allison says that “it is a condition of the possibility of conceiving of a change of a thing in time that we are able to contrast the state of a thing at an earlier with its state at a later time.” We can say that time began with creation, but we cannot meaningfully claim that creation occurred at the first time.

    Allison ends the chapter by focusing on what the consequences are for transcendental idealism with respect to the Antinomies. Because the conflict between the two positions is based on a “transcendental illusion”, it is “merely dialectical”. The conception of an absolute totality of conditions that constitutes the world in itself violates the rules of empirical synthesis. An experience of an infinite space or elapsed time, or a boundary of either, is impossible.

    All forms of transcendental realism, according to Kant, must regard the absolute totality of conditions for a state of affairs as constituting a world-in-itself, “in-itself” meaning the independence of this world so conceived from the conditions of empirical synthesis. It is logically committed to the proposition that the world (the sum of all appearances) is a whole existing in itself, but it forgets the conditions of experience in which this world is given. The regulative Idea of totality, which is grounded in the intellectual categorical imperative, is conflated with the thought of an actual object (the world) - and this is the transcendental illusion.

    Kant says:
    “From this antinomy we can, however, obtain, not indeed a dogmatic, but a critical and doctrinal advantage. It affords indirect proof of the transcendental ideality of appearances - a proof which ought to convince any who may not be satisfied by the direct proof given in the Transcendental Aesthetic. This proof would consist in the following dilemma. If the world is a whole existing in itself, it is either finite or infinite. But both alternatives are false (as shown in the proofs of the antithesis and thesis respectively). It is therefore also false that the world (the sum of all appearances) is a whole existing in itself. From this it then follows that appearances in general are nothing outside our representations - which is just what it meant by their transcendental ideality.” — Kant

    The argument here contains two suppressed premises: that the antecedent proposition (the world is a whole existing in itself, a totum syntheticum) is entailed by transcendental realism, and that transcendental realism and transcendental idealism are mutually exclusive and exhaustive positions. The negation of the antecedent entails the negation of transcendental realism, which entails the affirmation of transcendental idealism.
  • schopenhauer1
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    The antithesis asserts that the world can have no beginning in time and no limit in space. Allison breaks it down as follows:
    1.) Assume the world has a beginning in time.
    2.) The concept of a temporal beginning presupposes a preceding time before the thing exists.
    3.) Therefore it is necessary to think of an empty time before the world existed.
    4.) But such points of time cannot be distinguished from one another.
    5.) A world cannot meaningfully be said to have come into existence at one time rather than another time if both times are empty.
    6.) So we cannot meaningfully say the world came into being in time at all, therefore the world is infinite with respect to past time.
    darthbarracuda

    The argument here contains two suppressed premises: that the antecedent proposition (the world is a whole existing in itself, a totum syntheticum) is entailed by transcendental realism, and that transcendental realism and transcendental idealism are mutually exclusive and exhaustive positions. The negation of the antecedent entails the negation of transcendental realism, which entails the affirmation of transcendental idealism.darthbarracuda

    Schopenhauer's explanation:
    On the other hand, the law of causality and the treatment and
    investigation of nature which is based upon it, lead us necessarily
    to the conclusion that, in time, each more highly organised state
    of matter has succeeded a cruder state: so that the lower animals
    existed before men, fishes before land animals, plants before
    59
    fishes, and the unorganised before all that is organised; that,
    consequently, the original mass had to pass through a long series
    of changes before the first eye could be opened. And yet, the
    existence of this whole world remains ever dependent upon the
    first eye that opened, even if it were that of an insect. For such an
    eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, and
    the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and without
    it is not even thinkable. The world is entirely idea, and as such
    demands the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence.
    This long course of time itself, filled with innumerable changes,
    through which matter rose from form to form till at last the
    first percipient creature appeared,—this whole time itself is only
    thinkable in the identity of a consciousness whose succession
    of ideas, whose form of knowing it is, and apart from which, it
    loses all meaning and is nothing at all. Thus we see, on the one
    hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent
    upon the first conscious being, however undeveloped it may
    be; on the other hand, this conscious being just as necessarily
    entirely dependent upon a long chain of causes and effects which
    have preceded it, and in which it itself appears as a small link. [039]
    These two contradictory points of view, to each of which we are
    led with the same necessity, we might again call an antinomy
    in our faculty of knowledge, and set it up as the counterpart
    of that which we found in the first extreme of natural science.
    The fourfold antinomy of Kant will be shown, in the criticism
    of his philosophy appended to this volume, to be a groundless
    delusion. But the necessary contradiction which at last presents
    itself to us here, finds its solution in the fact that, to use Kant's
    phraseology, time, space, and causality do not belong to the
    thing-in-itself, but only to its phenomena, of which they are the
    form; which in my language means this: The objective world,
    the world as idea, is not the only side of the world, but merely
    its outward side; and it has an entirely different side—the side of
    its inmost nature—its kernel—the thing-in-itself. This we shall
    60 The World As Will And Idea (Vol. 1 of 3)
    consider in the second book, calling it after the most immediate
    of its objective manifestations—will. But the world as idea,
    with which alone we are here concerned, only appears with the
    opening of the first eye. Without this medium of knowledge it
    cannot be, and therefore it was not before it. But without that eye,
    that is to say, outside of knowledge, there was also no before, no
    time. Thus time has no beginning, but all beginning is in time.
    Since, however, it is the most universal form of the knowable, in
    which all phenomena are united together through causality, time,
    with its infinity of past and future, is present in the beginning of
    knowledge. The phenomenon which fills the first present must at
    once be known as causally bound up with and dependent upon a
    sequence of phenomena which stretches infinitely into the past,
    and this past itself is just as truly conditioned by this first present,
    as conversely the present is by the past. Accordingly the past
    out of which the first present arises, is, like it, dependent upon
    the knowing subject, without which it is nothing. It necessarily
    [040] happens, however, that this first present does not manifest itself
    as the first, that is, as having no past for its parent, but as
    being the beginning of time. It manifests itself rather as the
    consequence of the past, according to the principle of existence
    in time. In the same way, the phenomena which fill this first
    present appear as the effects of earlier phenomena which filled
    the past, in accordance with the law of causality. Those who
    like mythological interpretations may take the birth of Kronos
    («£ø½ø¬), the youngest of the Titans, as a symbol of the moment
    here referred to at which time appears, though, indeed it has
    no beginning; for with him, since he ate his father, the crude
    productions of heaven and earth cease, and the races of gods and
    men appear upon the scene.
    This explanation at which we have arrived by following the
    most consistent of the philosophical systems which start from the
    object, materialism, has brought out clearly the inseparable and
    reciprocal dependence of subject and object, and at the same time
    61
    the inevitable antithesis between them. And this knowledge leads
    us to seek for the inner nature of the world, the thing-in-itself,
    not in either of the two elements of the idea, but in something
    quite distinct from it, and which is not encumbered with such a
    fundamental and insoluble antithesis.

    — Schopenhauer- World as Will and Representation
  • schopenhauer1
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    @darthbarracuda
    Other Schopenhauer quotes that I think are relevant here:
    Thus we see already that we can never arrive at the real nature
    of things from without. However much we investigate, we can
    never reach anything but images and names. We are like a man
    who goes round a castle seeking in vain for an entrance, and
    sometimes sketching the façades. And yet this is the method that
    has been followed by all philosophers before me.

    The double knowledge which each of us has of the nature and
    activity of his own body, and which is given in two completely
    different ways, has now been clearly brought out. We shall
    accordingly make further use of it as a key to the nature of
    every phenomenon in nature, and shall judge of all objects which
    are not our own bodies, and are consequently not given to our
    consciousness in a double way but only as ideas, according to the
    analogy of our own bodies, and shall therefore assume that as in
    one aspect they are idea, just like our bodies, and in this respect
    First Aspect. The Objectification Of The Will. 151
    are analogous to them, so in another aspect, what remains of
    objects when we set aside their existence as idea of the subject,
    must in its inner nature be the same as that in us which we
    call will. For what other kind of existence or reality should we
    attribute to the rest of the material world? Whence should we take
    the elements out of which we construct such a world? Besides
    will and idea nothing is known to us or thinkable. If we wish to
    attribute the greatest known reality to the material world which
    exists immediately only in our idea, we give it the reality which
    our own body has for each of us; for that is the most real thing
    for every one. But if we now analyse the reality of this body and
    its actions, beyond the fact that it is idea, we find nothing in it
    except the will; with this its reality is exhausted. Therefore we
    can nowhere find another kind of reality which we can attribute
    to the material world. Thus if we hold that the material world is
    something more than merely our idea, we must say that besides
    being idea, that is, in itself and according to its inmost nature,
    it is that which we find immediately in ourselves as will. I say
    according to its inmost nature; but we must first come to know [137]
    more accurately this real nature of the will, in order that we may
    be able to distinguish from it what does not belong to itself, but
    to its manifestation, which has many grades. Such, for example,
    is the circumstance of its being accompanied by knowledge,
    and the determination by motives which is conditioned by this
    knowledge. As we shall see farther on, this does not belong to the
    real nature of will, but merely to its distinct manifestation as an
    animal or a human being. If, therefore, I say,—the force which
    attracts a stone to the earth is according to its nature, in itself,
    and apart from all idea, will, I shall not be supposed to express
    in this proposition the insane opinion that the stone moves itself
    in accordance with a known motive, merely because this is the
    way in which will appears in man.28 We shall now proceed
    28 We can thus by no means agree with Bacon if he (De Augm. Scient., L.
    iv. in fine.) thinks that all mechanical and physical movement of bodies has
    152 The World As Will And Idea (Vol. 1 of 3)
    more clearly and in detail to prove, establish, and develop to its
    full extent what as yet has only been provisionally and generally
    explained.29
    § 20. As we have said, the will proclaims itself primarily in the
    voluntary movements of our own body, as the inmost nature of
    this body, as that which it is besides being object of perception,
    idea. For these voluntary movements are nothing else than the
    visible aspect of the individual acts of will, with which they are
    directly coincident and identical, and only distinguished through
    the form of knowledge into which they have passed, and in which
    alone they can be known, the form of idea.

    Thus, although every particular action, under the
    presupposition of the definite character, necessarily follows
    from the given motive, and although growth, the process of
    nourishment, and all the changes of the animal body take place
    according to necessarily acting causes (stimuli), yet the whole
    series of actions, and consequently every individual act, and
    also its condition, the whole body itself which accomplishes
    it, and therefore also the process through which and in which it
    exists, are nothing but the manifestation of the will, the becoming
    visible, the objectification of the will. Upon this rests the perfect
    suitableness of the human and animal body to the human and
    animal will in general, resembling, though far surpassing, the
    correspondence between an instrument made for a purpose and
    the will of the maker, and on this account appearing as design,
    i.e., the teleological explanation of the body. The parts of the [141]
    body must, therefore, completely correspond to the principal
    desires through which the will manifests itself; they must be the
    visible expression of these desires. Teeth, throat, and bowels
    are objectified hunger; the organs of generation are objectified
    sexual desire; the grasping hand, the hurrying feet, correspond to
    the more indirect desires of the will which they express. As the
    human form generally corresponds to the human will generally,
    so the individual bodily structure corresponds to the individually
    modified will, the character of the individual, and therefore it is
    throughout and in all its parts characteristic and full of expression.
    It is very remarkable that Parmenides already gave expression
    to this in the following verses, quoted by Aristotle (Metaph. iii.
    5):—
    (Ut enim cuique complexio membrorum flexibilium se habet,
    ita mens hominibus adest: idem namque est, quod sapit,
    membrorum natura hominibus, et omnibus et omni: quod enim
    plus est, intelligentia est.)30
    § 21. Whoever has now gained from all these expositions
    a knowledge in abstracto, and therefore clear and certain, of
    what every one knows directly in concreto, i.e., as feeling, a
    knowledge that his will is the real inner nature of his phenomenal
    being, which manifests itself to him as idea, both in his actions
    and in their permanent substratum, his body, and that his will
    is that which is most immediate in his consciousness, though it
    has not as such completely passed into the form of idea in which
    [142] object and subject stand over against each other, but makes
    itself known to him in a direct manner, in which he does not
    quite clearly distinguish subject and object, yet is not known
    as a whole to the individual himself, but only in its particular
    acts,—whoever, I say, has with me gained this conviction will
    find that of itself it affords him the key to the knowledge of the
    inmost being of the whole of nature; for he now transfers it to
    all those phenomena which are not given to him, like his own
    phenomenal existence, both in direct and indirect knowledge,
    but only in the latter, thus merely one-sidedly as idea alone. He
    will recognise this will of which we are speaking not only in
    those phenomenal existences which exactly resemble his own,
    in men and animals as their inmost nature, but the course of
    reflection will lead him to recognise the force which germinates
    and vegetates in the plant, and indeed the force through which the
    crystal is formed, that by which the magnet turns to the north pole,
    the force whose shock he experiences from the contact of two
    different kinds of metals, the force which appears in the elective
    affinities of matter as repulsion and attraction, decomposition

    The will as a thing in itself is quite different from
    its phenomenal appearance, and entirely free from all the forms
    of the phenomenal, into which it first passes when it manifests
    160 The World As Will And Idea (Vol. 1 of 3)
    itself, and which therefore only concern its objectivity, and are
    foreign to the will itself. Even the most universal form of all
    idea, that of being object for a subject, does not concern it;
    still less the forms which are subordinate to this and which
    collectively have their common expression in the principle of
    sufficient reason, to which we know that time and space belong,
    and consequently multiplicity also, which exists and is possible
    only through these. In this last regard I shall call time and space
    the principium individuationis, borrowing an expression from
    [146] the old schoolmen, and I beg to draw attention to this, once
    for all. For it is only through the medium of time and space
    that what is one and the same, both according to its nature and
    to its concept, yet appears as different, as a multiplicity of coexistent and successive phenomena. Thus time and space are the
    principium individuationis, the subject of so many subtleties and
    disputes among the schoolmen, which may be found collected
    in Suarez (Disp. 5, Sect. 3). According to what has been
    said, the will as a thing-in-itself lies outside the province of the
    principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and is consequently
    completely groundless, although all its manifestations are entirely
    subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason. Further, it is
    free from all multiplicity, although its manifestations in time
    and space are innumerable. It is itself one, though not in the
    sense in which an object is one, for the unity of an object can
    only be known in opposition to a possible multiplicity; nor
    yet in the sense in which a concept is one, for the unity of a
    concept originates only in abstraction from a multiplicity; but it
    is one as that which lies outside time and space, the principium
    individuationis, i.e., the possibility of multiplicity. Only when
    all this has become quite clear to us through the subsequent
    examination of the phenomena and different manifestations of
    the will, shall we fully understand the meaning of the Kantian
    doctrine that time, space and causality do not belong to the
    thing-in-itself, but are only forms of knowing.
  • prothero
    429
    Thus we see already that we can never arrive at the real nature
    of things from without. However much we investigate, we can
    never reach anything but images and names. We are like a man
    who goes round a castle seeking in vain for an entrance, and
    sometimes sketching the façades. And yet this is the method that
    has been followed by all philosophers before me.

    Perhaps scientists should remember this as well as philosophers?
  • _db
    3.6k
    Chapter 4: Discursivity and Judgment

    I thought this chapter to be excellent, though certainly dense. It is a chapter in which a lot of important terminology gets explained. I am definitely glad I decided to start over with this text here. Kant's ideas are fascinating but I feel that they take a great deal of patience to fully understand and appreciate.

    Summary:

    Kant claims that discursive (or conceptual) knowledge is not the only type of knowledge, but that it is the only type of knowledge possible for humans. He explicitly rejects the classical empiricist notion that there can be a purely receptive, sensible intuition of an object without any conceptualization. But what are concepts and what are sensible intuitions, according to Kant?

    A concept is a general representation of what is common to a set of objects. Concepts refer to an object mediately by means of a feature, which several objects may have in common. They are always universal and they serve as a rule for the mind to organize representations into an “analytic unity”. Concepts are used by the understanding to judge; Kant characterizes concepts as “predicates of possible judgments”.

    The matter, or content, of empirical concepts are the sensible features that are thought in it as its marks, derived from experience and corresponding to the sensible properties of things. The form of a concept is another word for its universality (generality), which is the case for all concepts. It's important to note that simply having a collection of sensible impressions that are associated with one another is not equivalent to possessing a concept. A concept requires the thought of applying these properties to other possible objects. Doing this transforms the impressions into marks, which are partial concepts. Kant says this thought is produced by a series of logical acts that he bundles together under a single term, reflection.

    An intuition, on the other hand, is a "singular representation”, which refers immediately to its object. It is a direct mode of representation, which presents a single object to the mind. A key point here is that intuitions do not represent objects until they are brought under concepts during a judgement. It needs to be kept clear whether an intuition is conceptualized or indeterminate. (Allison notes that Kant uses the term “intuition” in more than one way. He says there are three ways Kant uses it: the mental content (aforementioned), an object, and the act of intuiting.)

    For Kant, neither intuitions nor concepts alone can yield knowledge; only together can they do so. Through judgement, the faculty of understanding applies concepts to sensible intuitions. Intuitions provide the content for judgements, while concepts provide the rules in accordance with which this content is determined.

    Judgement is a mediate knowledge of an object; a representation of a representation. No concept is immediately related to its object, but only to some other representation of it, whether that be an intuition or another concept. The essential function (task) of every act of judgement is to produce a unity of representations under a concept. If this function is fulfilled, then this concept can be regarded as “real”, or alternatively as a determination.

    The distinguishing characteristic of the relationship of representations in a judgement lies in its objective validity; they have the capacity to be true or false. Compare this to the unification that occurs in subjective associative acts of imagination, which do not possess this validity. Allison promises to further explain this distinction in a later chapter.

    The chapter moves on to the analytic-synthetic distinction. The introduction to the Critique contains two different versions of this distinction.

    The first version is that analytic judgements are those in which the predicate belongs to the subject; it is covertly contained within it; this connection is said to be thought through identity. The law of contradiction is the principle of all analytic judgements. Synthetic judgements are those in which the predicate lies outside of the subject, but is connected to it; this connection is said to be thought without identity.

    Allison believes the second version is greatly superior. Analytic judgements are explicative, while synthetic judgements are ampliative. Synthetic judgements add to the subject concept a new predicate, while analytic judgements do not. In other words, synthetic judgements extend our knowledge, while analytic judgements clarify it. Actually, Kant claims that analytic judgements can extend our knowledge too; what the distinction is really about is the content of these judgements. Analytic judgements extend knowledge by “formal” means while synthetic judgements extend it by “material” means.

    An analytic judgement has the general structure of:
    every x that is under the concept (a + b) is also under the concept b
    
    In this case, the concept b is contained inside the concept (a + b) as a mark. All analytic judgements are a priori, and since the truth of the judgement can be determined by analyzing the concept, no real object (x) need exist that satisfies these concepts. The judgement is purely “formal”. Kant’s conception of analyticity rests upon the notion that a concept is a set of marks (which are also concepts). For a concept to be contained means for it to be a mark, or mark of a mark, of a concept.

    A synthetic judgement has the general structure of:
    every x that is under the concept (a + b) is also under the concept c
    
    In this case, the concept c is not contained within the concept (a + b), although they refer to and are thus connected by the same identical object x, the subject of the judgement. The material extension of our knowledge comes from providing a determination of x that is not already contained in the concept (a + b).

    Synthetic judgements can only materially extend our knowledge if the concepts in it are related to intuition. Since judgements can only ever relate concepts to other representations (concepts or intuitions), and since only intuitions stand in immediate relation to objects, then any concept that is a real determination of an object must be related to an intuition. In fact, both the subject and the predicate concepts must be related to the intuition of the object for the connection of these concepts thought in the judgement to be objectively valid.

    Problems for traditional metaphysics arise as soon as the analytic-synthetic distinction is made. Kant claims that the question of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements is the central problem of metaphysics because everything else in metaphysics hinges upon this question.

    Philosophers have long drawn the distinction between a priori and a posteriori judgements, which differ in how they are known (grounded), or more specifically, whether experience grounds the judgement. The a priori is independent of experience because the criteria for it are necessity and universality, which cannot be grounded empirically. Conversely, yhe a posteriori grounded in experience.

    The question then is, can synthetic judgements have non-empirical grounds? Can synthetic a priori judgements be made? How is a non-empirical, extra-conceptual and extra-logical ground of judgement possible? How could we extend our knowledge materially beyond a given concept, independently of any experience of the object that is thought through that concept?

    Kant’s answer is that synthetic a priori judgements, predictably, require a priori (“pure”) representations. Kant says:

    “Knowledge is a judgement from which a concept arises that has objective validity, i.e., to which a corresponding object in experience can be given. All experience, however, consists of the intuition of an object, i.e., an immediate and singular representation, through which the object is given to knowledge, and of a concept, i.e., a mediate representation through a mark which is common to several objects, through which it is thought. One of these two modes of representation alone cannot constitute knowledge, and if there is to be synthetic knowledge a priori, there must also be a priori intuitions as well as concepts.” — Kant

    An “impure” synthetic a priori judgement is one that attempts to connect a pure concept predicate with an empirical concept subject, without any appeal to experience. But according to Kant, this type of judgement cannot have any objective validity. This is what is so disastrous about the analytic-synthetic distinction with respect to traditional metaphysics. Empirical intuitions are characterized by their particularity, and as such are incapable of expressing the universality and necessity that is thought in the pure concepts of a synthetic a priori judgement. Transcendentally realistic metaphysics are ungrounded because there are no intuitions that answer to the concepts in question!

    fetchimage?siteId=7575&v=2&jpgQuality=100&width=700&url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.kym-cdn.com%2Fentries%2Ficons%2Foriginal%2F000%2F022%2F524%2Ftumblr_o16n2kBlpX1ta3qyvo1_1280.jpg
  • Mww
    4.9k


    I’d nod in appreciation if that was all from someone else’s summary.

    I’d bow all the way to the ground if all that came out of your own head.
  • _db
    3.6k
    Allison is one hell of a scholar, that's for sure.
  • Mww
    4.9k
    I'm also a sucker for old books.darthbarracuda

    Not to brag....although I usually do......I have an excellent condition first edition, 1929 KempSmith CPR, with a perfectly preserved ex libris Cambridge University stamp on the fly leaf. Our neighbor down the road is an antique book dealer, who found it in a London hole-in-the-wall bookstore.

    Obviously, and thankfully, very few people ever used it. Or if they did, they were properly respectful of it.

    Anyway....just in passing.
  • _db
    3.6k
    Nice, that's a sweet copy. I have a hardback anthology of Kant's works by the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1952, part of their "Great Books of the Western World" series. It smells delightful :grin:
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    "Insofar as Da-sein temporalizes itself with regard to its being it is the world... The world is neither objectively present nor at hand, but temporalizes itself in temporality.. If no Da-sein exists, no world is 'there' either." Heidegger, 1927

    Kant started the philosophy which says our conscious perceptions along with the world create perception proper (all our experiences). This is the essence of the modern views of philosophy, and psychology and physics have added to this understanding from their own individual fields
  • Constance
    1.3k
    "Insofar as Da-sein temporalizes itself with regard to its being it is the world... The world is neither objectively present nor at hand, but temporalizes itself in temporality.. If no Da-sein exists, no world is 'there' either." Heidegger, 1927Gregory

    It is a powerful position, but, speaking of Heidegger, is it defensible?: Is there no grounding for dasein that is not dasein? That is, in t he phenomenological landscape of my Being, there is the reduction that allows for H's phenomenological ontology. The question is, What do we find in the world after the reduction has done its job entirely? Is there no residual "presence" (Derrida called it the transcendental signifier)?
    I think phenomenological reduction leads to the impossible, while the impossible is "embedded" in the world. To use Heidegger's critical words against Husserl: An examination of a reduced world reveals that we all "walk on water"; that the foundation of Being is metaphysics that literally paradoxically manifest, literally manifest, and even mysteriously and palpably manifest.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    I don't think you've contradicted Heidegger or that Heidegger contradicts Derrida and Husserl. What philosophy was saying since Kant about the union of consciousness with the world is now confirmed by the sciences
  • Art Stoic Spirit
    19
    There is no empirical evidence that the train would have hit me if I would have stayed on the railroad, waiting to be hit. This is just a most likely logical possibility.

    SP
  • Mww
    4.9k
    There is no empirical evidence that the train would have hit me if I would have stayed on the railroad,Art Stoic Spirit

    True. But there is a ton of empirical evidence that justifies the claim no two physical objects can occupy the same space at the same time.

    Wouldn’t you rather trust the standing evidence from experience, over the mere possibility of falsifying it?
  • Art Stoic Spirit
    19
    True. But there is a ton of empirical evidence that justifies the claim no two physical objects can occupy the same space at the same time.Mww



    There is empirical evidence for other cases indeed, but even the statement above that concludes from cases of others regarding my case is primarily logical. What if, for example, I get hit by a train even when I get off the rail because the train also derails towards me? Again, it is very unlikely that this will happen, but what if? For a sake of discussion, since every case is unique.

    Okay this was a pretty easy example, but there are cases that are much harder to conclude from the experiences of others. What if Julius Caesar was never assassinated? In the absence of empirical evidence for this scenario, we can conclude based only on logic. From an empirical approach, this is a pure waste of time. And for historians it is indeed, but this is where the philosophy starts playing role. Just because we have no evidence, the answer is not yet random or arbitrary and the question is not meaningless or counterproductive either.

    SP
  • Mww
    4.9k


    Can’t argue with your logic.

    “...Our foregoing method of reasoning will easily convince us, that there can be no demonstrative arguments to prove, that those instances of which we have had no experience, resemble those of which we have had experience. Thus not only our reason fails us in the discovery of the ultimate connexion of causes and effects, but even after experience has informed us of their constant conjunction, it is impossible for us to satisfy ourselves by our reason, why we should extend that experience beyond those particular instances, which have fallen under our observation.....”
    (Hume, T.H.N., 1.,3., 6., 1., 1739)

    And there you have it, from he who has been credited with saying it first. Or, maybe credited with saying it best.

    Too bad he was wrong about reason failing us. But still, considering his time.....
  • Art Stoic Spirit
    19
    Can’t argue with your logic.Mww

    The pure logic sometimes too abstract, not necessarily unswallowable, but the question is, whether legitimate argument can be built with no empirical observation. How are synthetic a priori truths possible? Kant's investigations in the Transcendental Logic lead him to conclude that the understanding and reason can only legitimately be applied to things as they appear phenomenally to us in experience.

    On the other hand however you don't have to experience anything or conclude from experience of others to feel necessity of avoiding trouble. Just by using common sense. Or no any theory can be legitimate which is built on no empirical evidence.

    SP
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    Empirical reasoning and logic go hand in hand in our lives. Kant goes ultra introspective in order to find his schemas. We live in this time and age and we know how the world of cause and effect work for the most part
  • Mww
    4.9k
    Kant's investigations in the Transcendental Logic lead him to conclude that the understanding and reason can only legitimately be applied to things as they appear phenomenally to us in experience.Art Stoic Spirit

    No, I don’t think that’s quite right.. The categories are stated as legitimately applied to objects, or possible objects, hence, objects of experience.

    Kant went to great length to prove the possibility of a priori cognitions, the objects of which do not arise naturally from phenomena, re: mathematics and geometry. From that, it is the case pure reason and pure understanding, have no legitimacy in experience.

    It is the principles those faculties employ, that determine the legitimacy of their application.

    But....prove me wrong; I welcome it.
  • Art Stoic Spirit
    19
    Kant went to great length to prove the possibility of a priori cognitions, the objects of which do not arise naturally from phenomena, re: mathematics and geometry. From that, it is the case pure reason and pure understanding, have no legitimacy in experience.Mww

    If this correct the same rules apply to such abstract concepts as spirituality, inner motivation, soul, or universal ethics. Kantian ethics.

    SP
  • Mww
    4.9k
    If this correct the same rules apply to such abstract concepts as spirituality, inner motivation, soul, or universal ethics. Kantian ethics.Art Stoic Spirit

    If the principles determine the applicability of certain faculties there must be rules for determining the conditions which meet the criteria of the application. So there are different rules. It’s like....the laws of thermodynamics don’t suffice in the domain covered by the laws of motion. We find that the categories set the rules for the applicability of the principle of, say, cause and effect, to empirical conditions. But spirituality, e.g., doesn’t have a cause as do empirical objects, so the categories do not suffice as rules for that cause/effect principle with respect to that abstract conception.

    But we sometimes wish to know if there exists any possible object that belongs to abstract concepts. If we can construct the object, without contradicting extant conditions, it then falls under the purview of the categories, and if we cannot construct such an object that is ruled by the categories, because it does contradict extant conditions, it is impossible to prove an object that belongs to that conception actually exists, and thereby proves the reality of It. Which leaves us with logical validity of the conception, but without empirical existence of its object.
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    Since I brought up Heidegger, I wanted to clarify that he seems to say time is prior to space, while Kant says "Space is a necessary a priori representation, which lies at the basis of all outer intuition.."
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    In this book on Kant I'm reading it quotes him as saying the thing in itself "are nothing in themselves" but "lie at the basis of these appearances". For *us* only appearance counts. However, for Kant appearances are " determinable" and in this enlightenment view of Kant he contradicts Einstein who said we can never fully grasp the world.
  • _db
    3.6k
    Chapter 5: The Sensible Conditions of Human Knowledge

    This was a long and dense chapter, though rewarding in its contents. I have separated the summary into sections to better organize and connect the arguments.

    Summary:

    Kant lists three exhaustive possibilities regarding the ontological status of space and time. They are the absolutistic, relational and critical positions, advocated by Newton, Leibniz and Kant, respectively. The chief concern of the Transcendental Aesthetic is to demonstrate the truth of the critical position (the transcendental ideality of space), and Kant goes about doing so by showing that space and time are a priori intuitions. Allison chooses to focus on Kant’s arguments for space, as they are generally in parallel with those of time.

    The a priority of space

    Kant says:

    “Space is not an empirical concept which has been derived from outer experiences. For in order that certain sensations be referred to something outside me (that is, to something in another region of space from that in which I find myself), and similarly in order that I may be able to represent them as outside and alongside one another, and accordingly as not only different but as in different places, the representation of space must be presupposed. The representation of space cannot, therefore, be empirically obtained from the relations of outer experience. On the contrary, this outer experience is itself possible at all only through that representation. — Kant

    Space is a necessary a priori representation, which underlies all outer intuitions. We can never represent to ourselves the absence of space, though we can quite well think it as empty of objects. It must therefore be regarded as the condition of the possibility of appearances, and not as a determination dependent upon them. It is an a priori representation, which necessarily underlies outer experience.”

    Allison believes that these are two separate arguments that aim to establish the apriority of space, but that the second argument is much stronger than the first.

    The first argument for the apriority of space: distinguishing objects from themselves and the self

    Kant is arguing here that objects are only apprehensible by humans as distinct both from themselves and from the self if they are represented in space; this representation cannot be empirical (a posteriori, it cannot precede that which it makes possible), so it must be a priori.

    This argument contains two presuppositions: that the representation of space is necessary in order for humans to refer to sensations external to themselves, and that it is also needed for humans to apprehend objects as external to each other. By the term “outer sense”, Kant means a sense through which one can become perceptually aware of objects as distinct from oneself; and by the term “inner sense”, he means a sense through which one can become perceptually aware of oneself and one’s states. Space as the condition of outer sense is not taken to be a logical necessity. Kant is not stating a tautology when he claims that space is the conditions for the possibility of outer sense, because space is not the only conceivable way of doing so - but it is this way for humans.

    Similarly, when Kant says that space is the condition for the possibility of distinguishing objects from one another, he is not making a tautology. For humans to distinguish objects, these objects need to not only be qualitatively different but also numerically different; they need to reside in different places in space. But it need not be the case there are no other forms of distinguishing objects from one another that are nonspatial. Spatiality is the means in which humans distinguish objects from one another; these are not identical!

    Some have objected by arguing that Kant ignores the possibility that space is an empirical representation which is mutually conditioned by other empirical representations; in other words, space could be derived as an abstraction from a complete concept of it and other empirical representations. But this misses the thrust of Kant’s argument: it is not merely that we cannot have representations of things without the representation of space, but that space operates as the underlying means in which these representations are apprehended. Furthermore, it is also the case that the awareness of the distinctness of objects from one another is a condition for the representation of space, for that is putting the cart before the horse. Space must not simply be concurrent, but also prior, to the representation of objects.

    The second argument for the apriority of space: conceiving space as empty of objects

    In the second argument, Kant says that since we can conceive of space as empty of objects, but that we cannot conceive of objects without space, it must be that space be considered as a condition for the appearances of these objects, and not simply a determination of them. Space is prior to the apprehension of distinct objects, and functions as a condition of doing so. And again, it is not a logical condition, nor is it a psychological condition (as in, it just happens to be the case that humans are unable to remove space from appearances); it is an epistemic condition for the possibility of representing distinct objects. It is through representing appearances as spatial that we represent them as “outer” - as distinct from ourselves (and also from each other). If space were to be removed, there would be no sensibility.

    Space as an intuition

    Kant’s arguments for the a priority of space have been covered. Allison then takes on Kant’s arguments for space as an intuition. There are two arguments, the second of which was completely re-done in another version. Allison focuses on the second of the second argument.

    The first argument for space as an intuition: space is a totum analyticum; so it is not a concept

    The first intuition argument assumes the exhaustive nature of the concept-intuition distinction, and goes about demonstrating that space cannot be a concept, and so consequently it must be an intuition. Kant claims that we can only ever represent to ourselves one space, which all places are parts of. However, space is not just a totality, or an aggregate of places. The parts of a totality are logically prior to the whole; this is the case in general for the marks of a concept. But the parts of space are only given in and through a single unified space. In other words, space is a totum analyticum. Since the parts do not precede the whole, as is the case with concepts, this means that space must be an intuition.

    The second argument for space as an intuition: space has infinite intension; so it is not a concept

    The second intuition argument assumes that space is represented as an infinite given magnitude and takes this to be conclusive that it is an intuition. In the process of explaining the second version of this argument (the first is quickly dismissed), Kant also further explains the differences between concepts and intuitions.

    A concept has a complex logical form that involves both extension and intension. Extensionally, every concept has other concepts under it, arranged hierarchically in terms of generality, with each lower species of concept introducing new differences. Intensionally, every concept contains other concepts within it as component parts; this is the inverse as extension, as the lower species of concepts with greater differentia contain the higher concepts within themselves.

    Compare this with an intuition, which is a representation of an individual. All parts of an intuition are contained within and presuppose the whole. Intuitions are divided by limitation, not differentia. Recall how this is also how a totum analyticum is structured.

    The second argument uses these structures to illustrate how concepts and intuitions involve infinity. Concepts handle infinity with respect to its extension; there can be an indefinite number of concepts falling underneath it. Intuitions handle infinity with respect to intention; they can have an infinite number of parts within it, coexisting. Allison says that concepts cannot have infinite intension because such an infinite concept could not be grasped by the human mind. And space is given as an infinite collection of parts, just as an intuition is.

    If this is the case though, does this contradict what Kant has to say in the Antinomies about the infinity of the world in space and time? Allison thinks there are different notions of infinity at play here. Space is always represented as being bounded by more of the same; there is a limitless progression of an all-encompassing space. This part of the text was a bit obscure, but if I am understanding correctly, the key point here is that space (and time) are tota analytica, but a world-totality is a totum syntheticum; space is divided into parts, while a world-totality is build up from its parts.

    Given-ness, and the different species of intuition

    Allison moves on to Kant’s notion of “given-ness”, as when Kant claims that “space is represented as an infinite given magnitude.” Kant uses the term “pure manifold” to describe the preconceptual framework that guides and limits human cognition. Space is never perceived as limitless, but rather spatial regions are perceived under the “pre-intuition” that they are parts of a limitless space. As an example, Allison quotes Schulze who illustrates how, in order to draw a line from one point to another, there must already be a space in which to draw it. It is this space that Kant calls a pure manifold.

    In a very dense series of paragraphs, Allison explains how there are three different senses of the term “pure intuition”. There is a “formal intuition”, which is a determinate (conceptualized) pure intuition; there is also a “form of intuition”, which is an indeterminate (unconceptualized) pure intuition. The latter can either be the manner of intuiting, or it can be the essential structure (form) of that which is intuited.

    So there is a form of the intuited, a form of intuiting and a formal intuition. A given, infinite, single and all-inclusive space which contains within it the manifold of spaces cannot be simply the capacity to intuit spatially, nor can it be a formal intuition (as it is not represented as an object); it must be the form of the intuited. Kant says:

    “Space, represented as object (as we are required to do in geometry), contains more than mere form of intuition; it also contains [gives/supplies] combination of the manifold, given according to the form of sensibility, in an intuitive representation, so that the form of intuition gives only the manifold, the formal intuition gives the unity of representation.” — Kant

    A crucial point raised by Allison is that a formal intuition (a determinate pure intuition of universal and necessary features of objects qua intuited) is a hybrid that requires both the form of intuition and a concept by means of which this form is determined.

    Geometry and Incongruent Parts

    Kant’s discussion of geometry is often taken to be the primary argument for the transcendental ideality of space, but Allison believes this is false. The discussion is brief, for nothing in Allison’s argument depends on this aspect of Kant’s thought. Geometry is taken to be a body of synthetic a priori propositions; from this, Kant concludes that this can only be explained if the representation of space is an a priori intuition, and therefore that space itself is transcendentally ideal and the form of outer sense.

    Two points are raised by Allison. One, that the transcendental ideality of space is a necessary but not sufficient condition of geometry being a synthetic a priori science; in which case, if the latter is false, the former need not be; and two, the argument gets its to conclusion only by means of the a priori and intuitive nature of the representation of space; so if this can be established by other means (such as the arguments made earlier in this chapter), the argument from geometry can be bypassed. The most the geometry argument can prove is that the representation of space is an a priori intuition; that space itself is transcendentally ideal must be proven in other ways.

    The “paradox of incongruent counterparts” is roughly that there are objects which are qualitatively identical but yet cannot be substituted for one another because they are different in their external relations, such as spherical triangles. I confess that I read this particular section no less than five times and I still don’t fully understand it. Regardless, Allison believes it is not a strong argument for Kant’s position.

    Ontological conclusions

    It is towards the end of the chapter that Allison moves to the overall argument Kant makes for the transcendental ideality of space. Before, it was focused on the nature of the representation of space (as an a priori intuition), but now it shifts to the ontological status of space itself (given that the representation of space is an a priori intuition). Kant draws two conclusions, and then claims that space is empirically real and transcendentally ideal.

    The first ontological conclusion entailed from the representation of space as an a priori intuition: space is not a property of things in themselves

    The first conclusion is that space does not represent any property of things in themselves (in the transcendental sense), nor in their relations to one another. This means that the representation of space, which was established to be an a priori intuition, does not contain any properties that can be predicated of things when they are considered apart from the subjective conditions of human intuition. Kant asserts (though without any justification) that no determination of an object can be intuited prior to the existence of this object and so therefore none can be intuited a priori.

    The second ontological conclusion entailed from the representation of space as an a priori intuition: space is a condition of sensibility

    Kant’s second conclusion is that space is nothing but the form of all appearances of outer sense; it is the subjective condition of sensibility under which outer intuition is possible for humans.

    The transcendental ideality of space

    From these two conclusions, Kant draws the third conclusion of the transcendental ideality of space:

    “It is, therefore, solely from the human standpoint that we can speak of space, of extended things, etc. If we depart from the subjective condition under which alone we can have outer intuition, namely, liability to be affected by objects, the representation of space stands for nothing whatsoever. This predicate can be ascribed to things only insofar as they appear to us, that is, only to objects of sensibility.” — Kant

    From this it can be garnered that Kant believes that spatial predicates are limited to appearances, the objects of sensibility, and cannot be applied to the things in themselves. The empirical reality of space comes from that notion that these predicates are applicable to these outer appearances, and so can be considered objectively real in the empirical sense. The empirical reality thesis is easy to make, but the transcendental ideality thesis is more difficult. Allison says that it is hard to find such an argument, but he endeavors to show that the transcendental ideality of space can be derived from the a priori and intuitive nature of its representation.

    A priori intuitions are possible only if they are forms of sensibility and thus transcendentally ideal

    To start, Allison points out that since concepts cannot be related immediately to objects, they can be formed independently of any experience of them. We can even think of concepts to which no object corresponds to, which is why we can think (but not know) the thing-in-itself. An intuition, on the other hand, is immediately related to the object in which it (re)presents to the mind. The problem of an a priori intuition is to explain how it is possible for an intuition to have nonempirical content, to not have content derived from the affections of an object? This would be impossible if the intuition presented things as they are in themselves, and not just for a priori intuitions but for empirical intuitions as well. But Kant is focused on a priori intuitions; by rejecting the aforementioned notion that a priori intuitions can have nonempirical content corresponding to things-in-themselves, it stands that these intuitions must contain nothing but the form of sensibility which predates all the actual empirical intuitions given from the affections of objects. An a priori intuition is possible if and only iff it presents to the mind a form of its own sensibility.

    Allison says there are two steps to the overall argument: that an a priori intuition is possible if it contains a form of sensibility, and that such an intuition is possible only if it does this.

    The first component of the argument for the transcendental ideality of space: an a priori intuition is possible if it contains a form of sensibility

    To analyze the first component, Allison defines a few terms, as what Kant means by “form of sensibility” is not straightforward. “Appearance” is an ontologically neutral term, which refers to an object that is given in experience (contrasted with those that are merely conceived). “Form” means condition”, and “matter” means that which is conditioned by a form. A “form of appearance” is a feature of an appearance in virtue of which its elements are related to one another; the representation of space functions as a form in this sense.

    Recall that “form of intuition” can refer to either the formal structure of intuited objects, or the mode in which these objects are intuited. The former sense is equivalent to a form of appearance, but the latter is inherently subjective and related to the mind’s receptive capacity.

    “Form of sensibility” can also be taken in two ways, both having references to mind. It can either be a form of sensibly intuiting (sometimes called a form of receptivity), or a form of objects qua sensibly intuited. Allison refers to these as forms of sensibility(1) and forms of sensibility(2). In claiming that a form of appearances (intuited objects) is a form of sensibility(2), Kant is also claiming that it pertains to these objects in virtue of the mind’s form of sensibility(1). Thus the first step in Kant’s overall argument here is saying that, if an intuition is a form of sensibility(2), then this is due to the form of sensibility(1), which in turn entails that the intuition must be both a priori (as it is necessary and universal for all subjects with the same form of sensibility(1)) and pure (as its source is not in any sensible data). Therefore, if we assume that the representation of space is a form of sensibility(2), then it is a pure a priori intuition.

    The second component of the argument for the transcendental ideality of space: an a priori intuition is possible only if it contains a form of sensibility

    The second step is more complicated than the first. Broadly construed, the only other alternatives for the possibility of an a priori intuition are the Newtonian and Leibnizian positions. Kant’s argument seems actually mostly compatible with the Newtonian absolutist view of space. Indeed, why can’t space (and time) be transcendentally real and the form of experience of transcendentally real things rather than just mere appearance? Yet Kant explicitly rejects the Newtonian view when he says that “space does not represent any property of things in themselves,” and any a priori intuition of a thing in itself.

    Kant believes that the Newtonian theory is incapable of accounting for the possibility that the representation of space functions as a form of human experience; in other words, taking space to be an ontological condition of objects is incompatible with it being an epistemic condition of them. Excluding the Kantian position that space is a form of sensibility, there are two alternatives: that we have an innate idea of space that exists in a “pre-established harmony” with the real space, or that the idea of space is derived from the experience of real space. The first alternative is ad hoc, while the second denies that space can function as a condition of the possibility of the experience of objects. There is a contradiction involved with the notion that the representation of a condition can have its source in that which is conditioned.

    Ultimately, the question of how an a priori intuition is possible is actually equivalent to the question of how the representation of space can function as a condition of sensibility. Therefore, everything rests on Kant’s claim that the representation of space functions as a form of human experience.

    The “neglected alternative”: could space be both a form of sensibility and a thing-in-itself?

    But might it be the case that space is a form of human sensibility but that it is also a corresponding feature of things-in-themselves? How can Kant hold that things-in-themselves are unknowable, but simultaneously hold that they are not spatial? This is known as the “neglected alternative”, which has been assumed to have been ignored by Kant. Of course, the Antinomies could be used to justify Kant’s position, though as we have seen they are not very strong.

    Allison notes, however, that while space as a form of sensibility(2) is inherently subjective and so thus the numerical identity of this form with a real space is impossible, qualitative similarity is also empty of any meaning. It is not as the “colored spectacles” analogy claims it to be, where space is akin to pink-colored glasses in a world that happens to also be pink in-itself. If Kant is correct when he says that space is a form of sensibility, then spatiality simply is not a predicate that one can meaningfully apply to things-in-themselves.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    Having read the whole thread, I wanted to ask what you thought of the argument itself of space and time being intuitions. Kant says "matter's motion or rest merely in relation to the mode of representation or modality, and *thus* to appearance of the outer sense, is called phenomenology." He also talks of the "material *meaning*" of nature. That we don't sense the world as it is in itseld is the heart of his philosophy. I oscillate between materialism and Kantianism and sometimes hold both at once (Hegelianism), but I hesitate to say that Kant proved anything positive in these regards. Space and time are needed for the world as legs are needed for a table, yet maybe the table always existed as a whole. And maybe we do see things in themselves in some sense although we add space and time to them
  • _db
    3.6k
    That's a good question. Ultimately it does seem that Kant's position on the a priori intuitive nature of space and time relies upon his belief that they are conditions for the possibility of experience and that they cannot be anything but this. I think he is correct to say that we are unable to represent objects without space just as we are unable to represent alteration without time; the very notion of object-hood requires space. I think I might not be convinced that space cannot also be a qualitatively similar thing-in-itself. I know Allison addresses this point in chapter 5, so perhaps I don't fully understand the material. It's mostly just a hunch.

    I am sort of deliberately keeping myself in the dark for the time being as to not spoil the surprise, but certainly there are counter-arguments to Allison's conception of Kant, and I am becoming more and more curious about them. I am particularly interested in reading more about speculative realism. I read part of Meillassoux' After Finitude and some Graham Harman correlationist stuff a few years back when I was wet behind the ears. I didn't fully understand all of it, but one point stuck with me (and I won't be able to give it justice here): that if transcendental idealism is true, then philosophers ought to be telling scientists (geologists, cosmologists, paleontologists) that what they profess to study never really actually happened as they say it did. @schopenhauer1 gives a quote earlier in this thread from Schopenhauer that is relevant to this issue.
  • Mww
    4.9k
    Kant says "matter's motion or rest merely in relation to the mode of representation or modality, and *thus* to appearance of the outer sense, is called phenomenology."Gregory

    Citation? I ask because you’ve indicated the statement is a quote, but I can’t find it in any of my translations. Not saying it isn’t in somebody’s, somewhere, but just that I’d like to view the context.

    Thanks.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    It's actually from Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786). I'm reading Michael Friedman's book on it right now.
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