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Kant And the Transcendental Unity of Apperception

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Kant And the Transcendental Unity of Apperception

NoSoul
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Posted 06/14/05 - 10:20 AM:	#21
Morrandir wrote: What is important to understand is that the equivalence works both ways. It is not true to say that objects are pure activity any more than saying that pure activity is an object. Matter is a form of energy, and energy a form of matter. Or perhaps it would be best to say that they are both two aspects on the same thing. Yes, I wish I had stated this "two-sidedness" & equivalence more directly in my first post. I am not sure if there is anyone claiming that. I think the particle/wave-dichotomy has been a scientific fact for a century. Light for example has properties that cannot be explained through particle physics. I shall leave this quote in expressly for select's benefit. Most theories that try to overcome the wave/particle-dichotomy are stating that waves and particles are two different aspects to the same thing. Sometimes we get a particle, sometimes we get a wave, but in truth we always get the same thing that we could, for instance, simply call waveparticle. Something that is both a particle and a wave and thus neither. Yes, and thus is which, imo, actually a type of Antinomy. ...in our everyday scope of things, we have objects and we have movement. But in any case, one must remember that there are some philosophers who have opposed this view, most notably Heraclitus. Only after Plato and Aristotle did this way of thinking root itself securely. Well, yes, I very much had in mind the types of philosophies associated with Heraclitus & other existential/"motion"/process philosophers & philosophies such as Buddhism. It would seem to me that it would be quite obvious to most modern philosophers, but it probably bears repeating (as I did in my first post) that, in fact, the Essentialist philosophies of Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, &c forward are the ones which have long ruled the world of thinking in the West. It's only in the past couple centuries (inspired in no small part by Kant) that the flaws of strict Essentialism have been exposed, and Existentialism posed as a legitimate contrast to it, as well as, as you say, the idea that, "It's both Essentialist and Existentialist, and thus, neither, but, instead, something else." The Ding an Sich and the Transcendental Subject are both incognizable, but for different reasons: the Ding an Sich would be object-as-viewed-by-subjectivity instead of object-as-an-object, and the Transcendental Subject would be subject-viewed-as-an-object instead of subject-as-a-subject. This is a terrific way of stating the situation. I would remark that I have long intuitively understood Thing-in-Itself by virtue of thinking about my own self: A phenomenon to everybody else, a type of noumen to me; indeed, the only possible noumen I could ever possibly know. I agree with you that my subjectivity is not technically a noumen or Thing-in-Itself, since it is subject, not object, to me. However, my subjectivity is an object -- and a phenomenal one at that -- to everyone else, just as every other individual's subjectivity is a phenomenal object to me & everyone else who is not him or her specifically. OBJECT <---> Cognization <---> SUBJECT. Every act of cognition is an act of subject to cognize an object. The act of cognition is a relation between subject and object, expressed, for example, as sCo, where C is the cognization-relation and s is the subject that cognizes and o is the object that is cognized. The underlying reason why neither object nor subject as such can be cognized is that trying to do that would omit the other relatee. Basically, in Wittgensteinian terms, "cognizing pure objectivity / subjectivity" is as nonsensical as "Socrates is identical" or "Socrates is greater than". Then, technically, I cannot actually cognize my self -- which is what you spoke to towards the end of your OP. Therefore, of course, although I referred to my own self as the only Thing-in-Itself/noumen in the universe I can actually know, even myself must, technically, always & ever remain at least somewhat of an elusive, incompletely (if yet partially) understood mystery. Which, in fact, seems to be much the same conclusion reached by modern neuroscience, which required centuries of empirical data to achieve, while Kant achieved it with "mere" extremely competent, critical thinking.
Firmly tie the mind, resembling a mad elephant, to the strong pillar of its perceptual content, with the rope of contemplative inspection, and gradually tame it with the hook of discrimination. -- Buddhist Handbook, Salamander Press To the poet and sage, all things are friendly and hallowed, all experiences profitable, all days holy, all men divine. - Nietzsche/Emerson

Tobias
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Posted 06/14/05 - 12:31 PM:	#22
Then, technically, I cannot actually cognize my self -- which is what you spoke to towards the end of your OP. Therefore, of course, although I referred to my own self as the only Thing-in-Itself/noumen in the universe I can actually know, even myself must, technically, always & ever remain at least somewhat of an elusive, incompletely (if yet partially) understood mystery. That is in fact recognised as one of the problems in Kant. He held that self consciousness was actually necessary for knowledge, but couldn't make clear how this self consciousness works. If you take you subjectivity as an object you cannot rwach it. Fichte has tried to compensate it by stating that the Transcendental Unity is in fact thought's^self positing activity, creating the I as it creates the subject. regards Tobi
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Utter Cunt
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Posted 06/14/05 - 02:18 PM: Subject: This is excerpted from my essay on Critique of the Pure Kant	#23
The central project of German enlightenment, Aufklärung, founded on the sovereignty of reason, underwent an "internal collapse" due to the problem of self-reference. If the sovereignty of reason is the claim that reason is capable of criticizing all beliefs, then it must be equally subject to the same sort of critique itself. Kant in the Preface of the Critique, first edition, said: "our age is the age of criticism, and to which everything must be subjected. The sacredness of religion and the authority of legislation are by many regarded as grounds of exemption from the examination of this tribunal. But if they are exempted, they become the subjects of just suspicion, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which has stood the test of a free and public examination." If reason can criticize everything, then it must also criticize itself. Ergo there must be a metacritique of critique, in order to ascertain whether the critique has any validity or merit. This seems to be Hamann’s view, as one of the first critics of Kant. In 1784, Hamann wrote the Metakritik über den Purismum der Vernunft where Kant was taken to task for the exaggerated formal character of knowledge, for the belief that reason could be isolated and separated from experience, and that the a priori could be neatly separated from the a posteriori, all divvyed up into spic n' span categories. It is no secret that Hamann's critique anticipated that of Jacobi and Hegel’s, where the Kantian enterprise irrevocably generates a number of embarrassing dualisms (reason vs experience, understanding vs sensibility, content vs form, freedom vs nature, practical vs pure). Hamann seems to claim all these dichotomies were impossible because thought relies on language, which is in itself constituted by both. "....not only does the entire capacity to think rest upon language ... But language is also in the middle of the misunderstanding of reason with itself." There seems to be no precise distinction between the intuitions and concepts in the employment of language. Since a demonstration that sense experience and reason are distinct depends on language or mental symbols and its purported ‘purity’ is ambiguous, which is a necessary characteristic of language, it is impossible. This ambiguity couldn’t be solved by the double move of giving up the knowledge of reality and the identification of the forms of intuition (space and time) within the transcendental subject or knowing ego, which is known to be free or empty of all corruptible sense experience. This freedom from sense experience, an ‘emptiness’ is the synthetic judgment a priori, which according to Kant is based on the pure forms of sensible intuition. For Hamann, those “forms of intuition” was a type of language that cannot be proved to be ‘pure,’ since language contains the characteristic of potential error, the creation of potential illusions. Instead of passive channels for the contents of experience Hamann suspects the ‘forms of intuition’ are dynamic forms of language that contain the property of deception and illusion that mislead the mind into a priori and necessity convictions. Hamann was astute to note that not only if reason can and ought to criticize everything, then there must be a metacritique of reason. However, there is nothing preventing this metacritique from turning into a radical and total skepticism. ================================================ Mind you, this was written a couple years ago when i was an undergrad. Edited by Utter Cunt on 06/22/05 - 09:29 AM. Reason: repetitive redundancy
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Morrandir
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Posted 06/14/05 - 02:35 PM:	#24
I will put this part of my essay about the transcendental deduction here. It is rather long, but it is also a detailed analysis of the deduction, unshortened from the original essay. It is from the spring of 2004, so it is rather old already. It also omits some deeper considerations, because it is based solely on explaining what he is doing here. *** * * 4. Transcendental Deduction as an answer to scepticism** The Deduction itself can be divided into two parts. The function of the first part is to show that the categories function as logically necessary conditions for presenting an object as an object of cognition. I will name this the proof of objective validity to distinguish it of the proof of objective reality. It does not as yet prove that the categories have any authority over the real (empirical) objects. The role of the second part is to fix this defect, and show that the categories function as the necessary conditions of real objects as well. The first part then strives to prove that a formally valid proposition is subsumed in the requirements set by the categories, i.e. that every logically constructed sentence is formed according to the rules determined by the categories. The second part, on the other hand, attempts to show that propositions that are valid on the basis of their content (true propositions) are subsumed in the categories. The latter goal is dizzying compared to the former. For this division it must be remarked that Kant has two ways of speaking about 'objects'. In German the division is between the words 'Objekt' and 'Gegenstand'. In the 'Objekt'-sense an entity is as an object if it can be expressed as the subject[1] of a proposition, i.e. as a formal object. This is a very wide conception of object, for many kinds of imaginary, even nonsensical objects (such as square circles) can function as such objects. In the 'Gegenstand'-sense an entity is an object if it is a real, existing object. 'Gegenstand'-object is also called an 'empirical object'. For example, 'square circle' can be as a logical subject in, say, the proposition "square circles do not exist", but it cannot (as an imaginary entity) be an empirical object. (Allison 1983, 135.) The first division of the Deduction attempts then to prove the necessity of the categories to formal objects, the second division, on the other hand, to empirical objects, and through it to the whole of the nature, i.e. the totality of entities. I will show that Kant can be interpreted as succeeding in the first, but not (at least fully) in the second. Before it is possible for us to go on, we must stop to demonstrate the structure of the proof. Kant distinguishes three faculties of the understanding: apperception (Apperzeption), imagination (Einbildungskraft) and apprehension (Apprehension). Each of these are, as parts of the understanding, capable of synthetic activity. The apperception is an ability of the understanding to recognize its thoughts as its own, i.e. apperceive its thoughts. The imagination is an ability to produce (spontaneously) intuitions that are not present in experience. The apprehension functions as a link between the content of the sensibility and the understanding, for it connects empirical intuitions with concepts. The synthetic activity of the apperception gathers individual concepts into new concepts, and it is thus about formal synthesis of the understanding. The synthetic activity of the imagination gathers such intuitions that are not present in the sensation. Imagination is about formal synthesis of the sensibility, i.e. of synthetic activity concerned with the forms of sensibility. The synthetic activity of apprehension in turn gathers manifolds of empirical intuitions (Gegenstand), and thus makes it possible for an intuition to form. Apprehension is then about synthesis of the content of the sensibility. Kant attempts in his Deduction to one by one link these faculties to the categories. The apperception subsumes the form of understanding, the imagination the form of sensibility and the apprehension the content of sensibility into the categories. We will start from the apperception. 4. 1. The proof of objective validity The central idea of this proof is that the manifold of representations can never come to us via the senses, but always requires the activity of the understanding. Kant thus seems to think that senses can only offer us individual representations, but never the manifolds they form. In the beginning of his proof Kant defines the principle of the transcendental unity of apperception. According to this principle it must be possible to say "I think" of all the manifolds of intuition in the same subject in which the manifold is found, so that the intuition can be cognized as one's own. This means simply that apperceiving an intuition demands the possibility to understand it as one's own intuition. Kant states as one analytic truth that this principle of the unity of apperception is the foundation for the necessary conditions for being an object. However, four distinct steps can be abstracted from the claim. "The I think must be able to accompany all my representations; for otherwise something would be represented in me that could not be thought at all, which is as much as to say that the representations would either be impossible or else at least would be nothing for me. That representation that can be given prior to all thinking is called intuition. Thus all manifold of intuition has a necessary relation to the I think in the same subject in which this manifold is to be encountered." (B131-2.) (1) A representation cannot represent anything to me unless it is possible for me to be conscious of it as mine. Here it must be noted that this does not mean that this sort of representation would not exist, just that I could not assert to myself anything about it because I would not know it was mine. (2) The representation of any manifold as a manifold is a single, complex thought. With this Kant wants to say that if I want to perceive the collection of the single players of a football team as a football team, I must combine its parts (the players) together and form a new, single (complex) thought. The result of such a synthesis Kant labels as the synthetic unity of representations. (3) A single complex thought requires a single thinking subject. In this Kant only generalizes his principle of the unity of apperception to concern also complex representations. This is essentially the same notion that William James has made: a set of individual thoughts about the elements of a whole can never be equivalent to the thought of the whole itself. (Allison 1983, 138.) Expressed in set theory: a manifold of distinct elements is not the same thing as the set that consists of them. Expressed in layman's terms: a group of individual people is not the same thing as the football team made up by them. (4) In this last step Kant infers two things from the previous point: the subject thinking of each component must be the same subject, and this subject must be able to be conscious of this identity – i.e. of that it is he that thinks of each of these components. This Kant calls the principle of the necessity of identity. This all can be summed up in the following way: "In other words, if representations A, B, and C are to be thought together in a single consciousness, which is necessary if they are to constitute a single complex thought, then the I that thinks A must be identical to the I that thinks B, and so forth." (Allison 1983, 139.) From this all Kant concludes that all combining is activity of the understanding, synthesis. So the synthetic activity must be assumed as a necessary condition for any possibility of the synthetic unity of representations. Kant claims that in order for him to cognize a line segment in space, he must first draw it in his mind, and thus synthetically produce it as the combination of its individual parts. This unity of the synthetic activity of the apperception is according to Kant unity of consciousness, and only in this way can the object be cognized. This all leads to the following assertion: "The synthetic unity of consciousness is therefore an objective condition of all cognition, […], something under which every intuition must stand in order to become an object for me." (B137.) The consciousness of this synthetic unity is consciousness of the forms of thinking. All representations must conform to the principle of apperception, lest they be epistemically void. I shall try to shed some light on the matter with an example. If I say "whenever the Sun shines on a stone, the stone gets warm", I state only the conjunction of two representations (that both of these representations are already complex can here be safely ignored). Hume denied that from this the statement "the Sun warms the stone" could be derived. Kant however has strived to prove that this leap is indeed possible. In order for the Sun to function as a logical subject in the statement "the Sun warms the stone", it is necessary that we first of all cognize the representations "the Sun shines on the stone" and "the stone gets warm" as our own. After this according to the principle of apperception we can form a synthesis of these representations and the claim "the Sun warms the stone" can be formed. Here Kant has, however, only presented the formal conditions for forming such a judgment, i.e. showed the necessary conditions for being a formal object. Now Kant argues that the forms of thought are the categories themselves – so the manifold of given representations have been subsumed into the categories, i.e. the forms of thought. The first part of the transcendental deduction has reached it glorious conclusion. 4. 2. The proof of objective reality Again Kant divides his proof into two parts. This time the goal of the first part is to establish a link between the categories and the forms of sensibility, whereas the second one attempts the same for the content of the sensibility. 4. 2. 1. From the categories to empirical objects The imagination provides us with the means of picturing in intuition such an object that is not itself present. Imagination is according to Kant that which makes temporal experience possible. This claim he justifies by claiming that time is given to us in parts, one moment at a time. This is for Kant the function of imagination; without it even the purest and the most fundamental representations of time and space would not be possible. "But if I were always to lose the preceding representations [...] from my thoughts and not reproduce them when I proceed to the following ones, then no whole representation and none of the previously mentioned thoughts, not even the purest and most fundamental representations of space and time could ever arise." (A102.) According to Kant then the drawing of for example a line (in thought) requires imagination. Because we form the line one point at a time, we must be able to conceive of the already drawn points to ever be able to perceive the line as a whole. This synthesis of non-present intuitions Kant names as the transcendental unity of imagination. This synthesis is in the heart of the just said, both necessary and sufficient, condition for the representations of time and space. (B154.) The goal of Kant is then the linking of the categories to the synthesis of imagination. Kant strives to achieve this by first stating that there is a reciprocity between the transcendental synthesis of imagination and its transcendental products (the representations of time and space) – as was previously demonstrated. After this he makes a questionable claim that this corresponds to the reciprocity of the synthesis of apperception and its logical product, as established in the first part of the Deduction. But why should the activity of imagination have anything to do with the logical functions of judgments? Kant merely, without so much as an argument, states that the synthesis of the imagination is at piece with the synthesis of the apperception. "[ B]ut insofar as [the synthesis of imagination] is still an exercise of spontaneity, which is determining and not, like sense, merely determinable, and can thus determine the form of sense a priori in accordance with the unity of apperception," (B151-2.) Allison points out, however, that Kant cannot in actuality finish the proof, for one cannot proceed analytically from the unity of apperception to the unity of time (and through that to the unity of imagination). (Allison 1983, 162.) On the other hand he asserts that Kant has given enough material to save the proof. He states that a reverse approach is possible by combining the results of the first part of the Deduction with the knowledge that the unity of time is the product of the transcendental synthesis of imagination. "The point here is simply that, given the argument of the first part of the Deduction, it follows that the product of the transcendental synthesis of the imagination must accord with the conditions of the unity of apperception. [...] But the categories have been shown in the first part of the Deduction to be conditions to the unity of apperception. Consequently, the transcendental synthesis of the imagination, which produces the unity by determining time, must conform to the categories." (Allison 1983, 162.) Kant can be considered as failing in linking the categories to the necessary conditions of empirical objects. On the other hand Allison has demonstrated that this link can be formed. It does not, even as such, suffice to show that categories would function as the conditions of all experience. Here the categories have only been linked to the forms of sensibility, namely time and space. A link between the categories and empirical intuition, i.e. the content of the sensibility, must still be established. This Kant attempts to achieve in the last part of his Deduction. 4. 2. 2. From the categories to the possibility of experience In the previous parts of the Deduction Kant has established (or attempted to establish) connections between the forms of the understanding and sensibility and the categories. A similar connection between the content of the sensibility and the categories is yet to be established. By the synthesis of apprehension Kant means the uniting of empirical intuitions. This synthesis makes perception (Wahrnehmung) possible. Apprehension then combines the content of the sensibility. (B160.) The essential part in this is that the apprehension is connected to the content of the sensibility. Kant attempts to link the synthesis of apprehension to the categories in five steps. The phases of this inference are so central, that I will present them one at a time and comment them briefly. "We have forms of outer as well as inner sensible intuition a priori in the representations of space and time, and the synthesis of apprehension of the manifold of appearance must always be in agreement with the latter, since it can only occur in accordance with this form."(B160.) The synthesis of apprehension must then conform to time and space. This is clear in the sense that as the apprehension deals with the intuitions of the sensibility, which are bound to time and space, the apprehension itself is also bound to them. "But space and time are represented a priori [...] as forms of sensible intuition [and] as intuitions themselves." (Ibid.) This is only restating the chapter three. "Thus even unity of synthesis of the manifold, outside or within us, hence also a combination with which everything that is to be represented as determined in space or time must agree, is already given a priori, along with (not in) these intuitions, as condition of the synthesis of all apprehension." (Ibid. 161.) The conditions of the unity of time and space function also as the conditions for conceiving an object in time and space. "This synthetic unity can be none other than that of the combination of the manifold of a given intuition in general in an original consciousness, in agreement with the categories, only applied to our sensible intuition." (Ibid.) Here Kant links the synthesis of apprehension to the categories. The synthetic unity of time and space is according to Kant subject to the synthetic unity of imagination (for time and space as the forms of sensibility are subject to it), and thus also apprehension is, as subject to imagination, subsumed into the categories. This step leans with all its weight upon the proof of (4. 2. 1). As we then realized, Kant himself cannot pull this proof through, so this part of the proof is also left hanging on empty air. Allison did, however, show that this proof can be concluded, so we may continue our analysis further: "Consequently all synthesis, through which even perception itself becomes possible, stands under the categories, and since experience is cognition through connected perceptions, the categories are conditions of the possibility of experience, and are thus also valid a priori of all objects of experience." (Ibid.) In this it is suddenly expressed that experience is knowledge achieved through the combining of intuitions. Kant does not, however, want to simply demonstrate that the categories pertain to all which is experienced, but also that the categories are what make the experience possible in the first place. Allison points out, though, that no such conclusion follows from the synthetic role of apprehension in the Deduction: "The most that follow from this role is that the categories are necessary for the connection of perceptions in 'empirical consciousness' it does not follow from it that they also function to relate these perceptions to an objective order and thus produce experience." (Allison 1983, 168.) Kant can not then, solely on the basis of the Deduction, prove that the categories function as the necessary conditions of experience – and it cannot therefore in itself refute scepticism. Kant's argument can by itself be taken to the formal conditions of functioning as an object, and it can laboriously be hurled to reach the conditions of empirical objects, and perhaps even the possibility of categories, but by no means can it as such prove that experience would in some way be possible with and only with the help of the categories. This Kant seems to understand himself: "Sceptical idealism thus requires us to take the only refuge remaining to us, namely to grasp the ideality of all appearances." (A378.) Kant does then admit that transcendental idealism is the last open refuge in the face of sceptical idealism – he does not thus himself present the Deduction as an independent refutation of scepticism. (Lammenranta 1993, 56.) [1] This subject (but not object) is a grammatical subject. It must not be confused with subjectivity. * * * ~M~
Philosophy is disciplined bewilderment. A mathematician is a person who thinks that if there are supposed to be three people in a room, but five come out, then two more must enter the room in order for it to be empty. http://www.beyondappearances.com

Maurice
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Posted 06/24/05 - 06:34 PM:	#25
I have a question for Morrandir, what does Kant mean by space and time and their relationship to the object? EDIT: I have read your opening post again. This time, I understand better. Does Transcendental Unit of Apperitoin mean 'we have memories'? Is Kant talking about us having memories of our past? Edited by Maurice on 06/24/05 - 06:39 PM

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Posted 07/11/05 - 02:47 AM:	#26
Maurice wrote: I have a question for Morrandir, what does Kant mean by space and time and their relationship to the object? Space and time are those in which all objects appear. Consider an xy-coordinate plane. The objects are points that are set into the coordinates. That is, in the language of physics, each and every object has three spatial coordinates and one temporal coordinate - they exist in four dimensions. Kant simply speaks of space when he speaks of the three coordinates. Therefore what he is saying is that every object is always both in space and in time. It has a place and it has a time. This is, of course, a bit modernized version of Kant, but only because it is often easier for us to understand these things in contemporary language. Space and time are, because of the abovesaid, necessary conditions for an object. That is, because every object must always appear in space and in time, there is no way any object can appear as not in those. Thus the condition that makes the appearance of objects possible in the first place is that there is space and time. Space and time can then not themselves be objects, because they make objects possible (they can't set the criterions for themselves - either they are the criterions, or they are subject to these criterions). Thus Kant says that they are forms of intuitions. In a sense he is simply trying to say that, in the coordinate-analogy, the coordinate axises are not themselves points, but those in which the points appear. Because we cannot fathom any objects that are not in space and time, the space and time are necessary conditions for anything to appear to us as objects. Note that strictly speaking Kant is here not saying that objects could not be in space and time even in themselves, but only that it would be useless speculation to ponder that, because we could never know. This is why I mention the epistemological aspect of Kant's philosophy. He is restricting metaphysics by epistemology, that is, not only asking "what there is?" but also "what can we know?", as the former is useless without the latter. EDIT: I have read your opening post again. This time, I understand better. Does Transcendental Unit of Apperitoin mean 'we have memories'? Is Kant talking about us having memories of our past? Not only that, although this is included. Transcendental Unity of Apperception is more general. It includes our ability to see ourselves as continuing into the future as well as into the past. It also includes the ability to put our perceptions together (that is, instead of seeing unrelated dots of light, we see, for example, a tree - this is part of the synthetic activity of our brain, as it constructs this tree from the smaller, seemingly unrelated parts through a complex psychological process), among others. In a sense the Transcendental Unity of Apperception does not at all include memories, because memories include the temporal aspect, and Kant speaks of that in relation to Imagination. Transcendental Unity of Imagination links the past and the future to our presence. Transcendental Unity of Apperception makes this possible, but is itself independent of this: it is only the ability to recognize perceptions as our perceptions, as well as combine these individual perceptions into greater wholes. Note that this is exactly what, for example, a measuring device lacks: it makes perceptions through whatever apparatus it has, but it cannot recognize these perceptions as its own (but it can recognize these perceptions, much like a geiger counter bleeps whenever it perceives radioactivity). ~M~
Philosophy is disciplined bewilderment. A mathematician is a person who thinks that if there are supposed to be three people in a room, but five come out, then two more must enter the room in order for it to be empty. http://www.beyondappearances.com

Maurice
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Posted 07/13/05 - 05:50 PM:	#27
I agree with co-ordinate geometrical space, but I do not agree with Time as the neccessary condition for an object to exist. Time is given by change of the object. It is measured in relation to other things. If there is only one object in space. And it does not change, does it have a time? Thanks for your explanation of "Transcendental Unity of Apperception", it helps a lot. I read a book that says our ability to recognise trees is given by our schema. The books says we have long term memory (where our past is stored) and short-term memory (our present conscience) where the thinking takes place. The short-term memory is limited in the number of things it can hold, but the long-term memory can hold a lot of information. We only become aware of the contents of the long-term memory when it is present in our short-term memory. We learn things by repetition, the purpose of which is to construct schemas in our long-term memory. We humans have a habit of grouping things, differentiating things. combining and dissecting things. I am wondering if Kant said anything revolutionary, totally out of the ordinary that no one knows.

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Posted 07/13/05 - 11:41 PM:	#28
Correct me if im wrong: It seems that the fundamental thing under discussion is Kant's discussion of how the understanding organises experience into a whole. We are able to say "i think" of our experiences. Not only do we do this within each instant, Kant argues we do this across time, uniting temporally separated instants. First of all, I dont understand how this could work. Second of all, there is an alternative, which can be argued to fit better with the neuropsychological data: What if the unity of experience is an illusion created in the following way. Within each instant, there is an experience (via memory) of past experience. These past experiences are themselves transcendent, outside our grasp, within the present instant. Experience may be unified within each instant, but instants are separated. Representation of past experiences, via memory, creates the impression of a single unified whole across time. We may naively believe we have access to the past-experience-in-itself as a result of the memory-phenomena, just as we may naively believe we have access to the thing-in-itself as a result of the sense-phenomena. Anterograde amnesia affects the ability to form long term memories. When I was studying psychology we watched a tv program about a guy who suffered anterograde amnesia as a result of viral infection. He kept a diary, almost every entry of which was 'I exist'. While making the current entry, he would deny having made the previous entries. Someone else had made them he insisted. He was an intelligent guy and could recognise something was not quite right. His attempts to understand what was going on were fascinating and heart-breaking. Sometimes he claimed he had suddenly started seeing in colour again after only seeing in black and white, sometimes he claimed that he had just now awoken after being trapped in a state with no sensation at all. This is an example of exactly the sort of temporally disjointed self which supports the idea that the unity of experience is an illusion created by memory. I think Kant's explanation has a much harder time accounting for this.

Tobias
Metaphysical exorcist

Usergroup: Moderators
Joined: Feb 17, 2003
Location: Just rub the mirror

Total Topics: 58
Total Posts: 5580

Posted 07/13/05 - 11:46 PM:	#29
I am wondering if Kant said anything revolutionary, totally out of the ordinary that no one knows. He only revolutionised metaphysics......that is all actually.
"The Power of Kant compels you" "The Power of Kant compels you" "The Power of Kant compels you"

Maurice
banned

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 19, 2005

Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 43

Posted 07/14/05 - 08:19 PM:	#30
He only revolutionised metaphysics......that is all actually. hum... I thought Epistemology is different from Metaphysics. I guess I was wrong.

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