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Kant And the Transcendental Unity of Apperception

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Kant And the Transcendental Unity of Apperception

Morrandir
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Posted 06/01/05 - 12:44 PM: Subject: Kant And the Transcendental Unity of Apperception	#1
After having a nice little chat about this with Tobias and Isaiah elsewhere, I feel compelled to start a thread about Kant's Transcendental Unity of Apperception. Here it is, then. 1. Introduction to Kant's Transcendental Method I will give a brief introduction to the basic tool of Kantian philosophy. Those that are familiar with it can skip the introduction without loss. 1. 1. What Does Transcendentality Mean? The latin verb transcendere means "to surpass", to go or be beyond something. Kant distinguishes sharply between the transcendent (that which is beyond something) and the transcendental. The latter is very important in Kantian philosophy: the transcendental is something which lies in the border of something - in Kantian philosophy, basically in the limit of our cognitive capacities. So if x is transcendent, it lies beyond a fence. If x is immanent (a term that Kant is rarely if ever interested in), then it is on this side of the fence. If x is transcendental, then it is on the fence - perhaps a property of the fence in question. The idea is, thus, actually rather simple, if one can get over the horrid word . 1. 2. Kant's Transcendental Method of Reflection Kant is interested in the necessary conditions of knowledge. He is not asking whether knowledge is possible anymore (unlike most of his predecessors), but under what circumstances knowledge would be or is possible in the first place. His main idea is to refute skeptical idealism (that of Hume's) by starting out from a premise they accept: we have knowledge of our own mental states, and trying to prove that this is only possible if we can have knowledge of external objects as well - that is, the necessary condition of subjective experience is experience of objects. Kenneth R. Westphal put it aptly enough to quote in his book Kant's Transcendental Proof of Realism: Kant is identifying some of our key cognitive capacities by identifying some of our key cognitive incapacities. He is saying that Kant is trying to find out what are the necessary conditions of our knowledge by finding out what we cannot comprehend. This reflection he calls transcendental reflection, and it simply means that he is reflecting on his own mental borders, trying to find out what the fence is like. Or, as I like to analogize it: we are all in a box according to Kant, and he is trying to find out what the walls of the box look like. 1. 3. And What Did He Find? Kant's philosophy is extremely complex, but the basic idea is simple. We experience, and we experience something. Kant calls this something that we experience the thing in itself (Note: this does not mean that our experiences are experiences of the thing in itself, but that the thing in itself lies behind our experiences). He then uses transcendental reflection to show that there are some necessary conditions for this thing in itself to be represented by us. He notes that we cannot imagine something that is not in space and in time. In one of his arguments he uses transcendental reflection in a very enlightening way: take an object. A chair, for instance. Then start ripping it of its properties. You can take a lot of properties away from it, but when you have, you end up with some two things that you cannot strip it of: the space it occupies and the time it exists in. Therefore: space and time are necessary conditions for something to be presented in our experience. But that is not all: there are the Categories. First let me note that Kant divided the cognition into three pieces, of which two are of immediate concern: sensibility that receives intuitions (basically: perceptions) and understanding that arranges them into concepts. Space and time are the forms of sensibility, that is, the coordinates into which every sensible perception must conform to in order for it to be able to present itself to us. These could be compared to the borders of a vase, into which things are dropped into: any object that enters the vase must fit into the limitations the vase itself sets for it. The Categories of understanding are then the necessary conditions for something to be conceived. This is where our interests lie, at the moment. Those Categories are numerous (12 for Kant), but the most important ones of those are, for example, that of causality (the ability to set consecutive experiences into some sort of relation with each other) and that of quantity - the ability to numerically distinguish objects from each other. Kant claims that these Categories and the forms of sensibility (space and time, remember?) our cognition imposes on the objects we perceive. That is, they are a filter through which every object of experience must pass. The thing in itself is then the object considered as independent of these conditions (as it is when it is not experienced), and the appearance or the phenomenon is the object as considered within our cognition, as subsumed under the conditions set for it by us. If Kant can prove his system, he would then refute skepticism. The initial proof for these Categories of understanding (he thought that the Categories are hierarchically higher, so the forms of sensibility too are subsumed under the Categories) he calledthe Transcendental Deduction (of the Categories). It is within the steps of this proof, that he himself called "the most difficult task ever undertaken in the service of metaphysics" and that took him 10 years to complete, there is the Transcendental Unity of Apperception, to which we now turn. For it is one of the most important single ideas in the history of philosophy - regardless of how the Transcendental Deduction as a whole fares. 2. Of the Transcendental Unity of Apperception in General Terms Kant embarks on a mission to find out what it would take for one to experience. The first step of the Transcendental Deduction (and the only step I will concern myself with here) concerns the necessary conditions for someone to even experience something. This is why it is so important regardless of the Transcendental Deduction in general, because it basically sets down the foundations of consciousness in a single philosophical idea. The Principle of Transcendental Unity of Apperception is then the principle which alone gives rise to consciousness. It is something that is actual to the philosophy of mind even today, and something that has been in various forms of a host of philosophers since Kant - including, to name a few, Hegel, Husserl and Wittgenstein. But before we can get into the actual principle, we must consider the idea of transcendental subject (something that too is present in the philosophy of many since Kant). 3. The Transcendental Subject In the introduction I presented Kant's idea of understanding as something that arranges experiences and conceives them. One important thing to understand about understanding is that it is active. The sensibility mainly receives passively, whereas the understanding actively organizes the intuitions received by the sensibility. Kant's idea is simple: each and every perception is always singular, particular. In order for there to be any wholes at all, the mind must organize the singular perceptions into conceivable wholes. From this Kant then concludes (through lengthy additions, as always) that the basic way for a subject to be is to act. The subject is not merely active, but subjectivity IS activity. The transcendental subject is the necessary condition of any subjective experiences. But the transcendental subject is not some material being, but in fact it is pure activity. What the subject brings to the matter given by the object is the activity through arranging. It could be seen this way, as well: the necessary condition for any cognition is that there is some object that is cognized, and some subject that does the cognizing. Whereas the thing in itself is pure objectivity, the transcendental subject is pure subjectivity. The transcendental subject is subjectivity stripped of all the influence of objects. And for Kant, the transcendental subject is pure activity without any objects of activity. It is important to understand that the transcendental subject is a theoretical limit (hence the word "transcendental") of subjectivity, and as such is very different from the empirical subject (i.e. you and me). It is beyond our cognition in the same sense as the thing in itself is - even though they are polar opposites. But what is this activity of the transcendental subject? 4. The Principle of Transcendental Unity of Apperception According to Kant, the necessary condition for us to have any (conscious) experiences at all is that we are able to recognize the experiences as ours. That is, for an experience to be an experience for us, we must be able to say "I think" of that experience. (Note that "I think" is pretty much equivalent to Descartes's Cogito, but given a new interpretation in Kantian framework). This ability to reflect upon our experiences and saying "I think" of them he calls apperception. Apperception is a faculty of understanding, a sort of subset of it. It is one way the understanding functions, and it is the first step in the Transcendental Deduction. Of that, no more. This is very important. Basically Kant here invents something totally new: subjectivity is a process, not a substance. The Cartesian substantial mind is substituted by Kantian processual mind, and in this he is way before his time (after all, it was only after the mid 20th century that even crude functionalist accounts of mind begun to emerge - and Kant's idea is actually far better than those). But this is not the crux of the matter, yet. Because if we stopped here, we would, according to Kant, have at best some flickering moments of consciousness, where the consciousness was always a different consciousness. That is, even though "I think" would accompany two of experiences, there was no telling whether these "I thinks" were somehow related. So, Kant ponders, what do we still need to have a consciousness (which we clearly have!). And so, he stumbles upon the synthetic nature of apperception. Not only must we be able to say "I think" of every experience, we must be able to say "I think" in the same consciousness of every experience belonging to that consciousness. That is, we must be able to recognize the different "I thinks" as belonging to the same subject. Therefore, he says that we must have synthetic unity of apperception, that is, the ability to take particular "I thinks" under one unity of subjectivity through the synthetic activity of the understanding. And because this is a necessary condition for consciousness, Kant has produces a new term: The Transcendental (Synthetic) Unity of Apperception. This principle (that we must accept the transcendental unity of apperception) is the foundation of (empirical) consciousness for Kant. Simply: the ability to recognize particular experiences as belonging to a single subject: us. 5. So What Does This Mean? It means a lot, of course, but generally. Well, as said, Kant turns from substantial conception of mind to processual (we are still waiting for some philosophers of mind to enter the 19th century with Kant). The consciousness is a constant process of self-recognition. This has actually received a lot of scientific evidence lately, because it seems that memory plays a crucial role in consciousness and personality: the continuity of self-recognition is the basis of consciousness. This is what is Kant's message here. What is this activity? What recognizes? The understanding, of course, as said before, but that is not enough. It is the transcendental subject, the pure activity of subjectivity that is the act of recognition. Kant is not, notoriously so, very clear at this point. For this raises the question: what is this pure activity? Shouldn't it be based on something - something that acts? The ways to answer this are many, and Fichte for one said that one must simply either start from the subject or the object, and himself started from the subject. Moreover, Kant is not really that interested in that question. He assumes consciousness, and only tries to chart the boundaries of consciousness. As he ends up saying that nothing can be said of the transcendental subject beyond its effects that we see as its activity (much like with the thing in itself), then he must, in order to be coherent, leave the question as to the nature of the transcendental subject ultimately unanswered. To him, the question is about something something transcendent, something beyond the limits of our cognition, and thus, basically, meaningless. 6. Ending Remarks So, there you go. There is no easy way to explain the Transcendental Unity of Apperception. Or, there is: the recognition of experiences as one's own within the same subject. But the problem with such explanations is that they are ultimately rather vague. The problems arise when one tries to plunge deeper into the concepts, to see the system behind it. One must bear in mind always that the single most important point to understand about Kant is his transcendental method. He is NOT trying to prove that we have consciousness (you can disagree, if you will, but somehow I doubt it will be anything but half-hearted playing of a devil's advocate), nor is he trying to prove that we exist. He is assuming that we have a consciousness, that we exist and experience, and then trying to show that there are some pre-requirements for those. If one can prove that the necessary condition of x is y, and that x, then he can prove that y. His transcendental method is also the reason behind his Copernican Revolution, i. e. his turn from ontology to epistemology (and metaphysics has never been the same since). Through this transcendental method he was able to recognize the active role our mind has, and to somehow get his mind to grasp something as modern as subjectivity as a continuous process of self-identification. It doesn't much matter whether the rest of his Transcendental Deduction succeeds or not: this is a feat worthy of praise in itself. ~M~ P. S. I now pretty much expect Tobias to give a nice little account on how Hegel took Kant's ideas and reformulated them, what effects did it have on German idealistic philosophy etc. The stage is yours, Tobi baby P. P. S. One interested on the more detailed analysis of Transcendental Deduction might want to take a look at my essay in my homepage: http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/tkannist/philosophy.htm Edited by Morrandir on 06/01/05 - 01:17 PM. Reason: Fixes and additions
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

Tobias
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Posted 06/02/05 - 02:41 AM:	#2
OK, on the transcendental unity.... What are you doing to me Morrandir, I also need to do some work, first that Heidegger thingy and now this...mumble mumble grump grump :P The transcendental unity is indeed the principle that grounds the deduction and is the root to answering the question 'what makes experience possible'. I will not criticise that priciple, I will elaborate a little and give some problems in Kants exposition of the consequences on this principle. Now I am not much at home in Kant himself. What I know of it comes from secundary litarature and mostly on literature on Hegel's appropriation of the principle. Morrandir identified two characterisics of the synthetic unity. 1. the 'I think' meaning that we can reflect on our own judging. 2. Identity of the subject over time, because if the subject wouldn't identify himself as himself experience by one and the same subject would not be possible. I would add a third and that is unification. The understanding unifies a manifold of possible objects (Kant says intuitions) into a comprehendable whole. For instance we see the letters and buttons on our computer has a whole,it would become a mess if we saw them as unrelated particulars. (Actually Morrandir covers this under transcendental subject) This yields the following picture of the mind, or maybe understanding as a in potentia self consicous, reflexive, unifying unity. this all before any object comes into play, actually even before any subject comes into play! Self consicousness I want to go a little deeper into the self consicousness claim, since Morrie asked me about Hegel and it is that which became the cornerstone of hegelian philosophy. What does this self-consicousness mean? It not only means that we can and must be able to accompany everty principle with 'I think', but also that we can comprehend what we are doing when we are doing something. for instance if I see a friend on the street and I try recollecting his name, I must be able to know that I am recollecting. If I play baseball, Imust know that I am playing according to the rules of baseball and be able at least in principle to articulate these rules for myself and finally if I make some moral judgement, I must know that I am judging and I must be able to trace back my judgement to some notion of morality, for that judgement to be moral and not dogmatic for instance. Kant states that "The transcendental unity of apperception forms out of all possible appearances, which can stand alongside eachother in experience a connection fo this experience according to laws" A108 Pippin now states that thismeans the following: "Kant wants to maintain that if I could not become concscious of the rules I was applying in unifying my representations, in attempting to represent objects I would not be following rules or representing objects but merely associatively producing subjective states, states that since merely associated could not count as being representative states, as having objects or having experiences". (Pippin 2000) This means that at the heart of the transcendental deduction lies the claim that we can become conscious of our own activity regardimg the understanding of objects. It is this that decisively influenced Hegels programme and also this I think Morrandir will disagree with, but we will see. Problems in Kant Through the whole German idealist movement it was recognised that the transcendental deduction and principle of unity of apperception was a milestone in metaphysics. It was in fact revered as a supreme principle at least by Hegel. What than are the problems with it? Actually the problem was that Kant wasn't radical enough on his own terms and that caused inconsistency. The principle of synthetic unity of apperception is supposed to be a first principle, the principle that makes experience possible, that makes the appearance of an object as such possible. What than are all kinds of categories doing in Kant which supposedly lie before this principle? The most notable is 'sensable intuition'. This is what, a non-experience of something preconceptual? If it is an experience it is subordinate to the transcendental principle, if it is not how can we speak about it at all? This goes for all 'transcendental' categories. If you are really in a box or behind a fence, how can you know there is something behind it? Intuition and thing in itself are moot concepts. They are not necessary for understanding the world. The box is all there is, there is no outside the box. That means that theoretically everything can be understood rationally. The same goes for another dychotomy kept by Kant but actually redundant the dychotomy between subject and object. The charge against Kant is that he totally annihilates the objective and puts all emphasis on the subject side while it is not necessary. Morrandir wrote: we have knowledge of our own mental states, and trying to prove that this is only possible if we can have knowledge of external objects as well - that is, the necessary condition of subjective experience is experience of objects. Certainly, but by placing the conceptual notions (the categories) on the subjective side Kant annihilated the possibility of the object as anything else but the incoherent intuition or the equally incoherent nouymenon or Ding an sich. The problem becomes pressing if we investigate what the transcendental subject does. It is pure movement, but not movement regarding to something. (It in fact calls Aristotle's causa sui to mind which is pure thinking of itslef and that seems what the trnacendental subject is doing all the time. The transcendental subject doesn't relate himslef with objects. That is a big problem. It basically means it has no relation to the world, it is in Platonic terms 'Xoris', 'detached', unknowable and for pure activity suprisingly inactive. Morrandir acknowledges that problem here: What is this activity? What recognizes? The understanding, of course, as said before, but that is not enough. It is the transcendental subject, the pure activity of subjectivity that is the act of recognition. Kant is not, notoriously so, very clear at this point. For this raises the question: what is this pure activity? Shouldn't it be based on something - something that acts? The ways to answer this are many, and Fichte for one said that one must simply either start from the subject or the object, and himself started from the subject. Hegel's attempt at a solution Here lies a problem that Hegel wants to tackle. Hegel asserts as said that it is Kants problem that he isn't radical enough. That he only attaches subjective meaning to the transcendental principle and that he doesn't deduce the categories from this principle itself, that it is just a justification of them. He called this notoriously 'the fall of science'. Hegel holds that Kant didn't recognise hisown principle for what it was, not a subjective principle which leads to all kinds of dualisms, but an absolute principle. Kant didn't stumble over a subjective principle, but over the true identity between subject and object! The unity of apperception is according to Hegel an absolute principle, that means it lies even before the emergence of subject and object. That is not such a crazy thought since if it is that principle itself that makes experience possible it is also that principle that makes this experience have the for of a subject experiencing an object. This in effect reformulates the subjective objective dualism. If there is a conceptual structure in place needed before we can speak of an object, than it is these concepts themselves that are 'objective' namely constitıutive of an object. Since the transcendental principle implies self consciousness, i.e. the possibility of learning the concepts that must be in place, a science directed towards these concepts is objective. Hegel hade some other qualms with, Kant, namely that his deduction is excessively formal. Kant's subject is only a formal unity, that has no genuine interaction with the objectsand which does not change in this interaction. The grpounding of the subject and object duychotomy in a necessary identity allows Hegel to formulate a theory by which the subject and object relate, are different within identity. This opened the door to historicity and time as categories with which to analyse our understanding, self consciousness. Hegel deduces the categories dialectically in teh logic and not statically as Kant did, but these are in effect considerations apart from the transcedentals unity of apperception,which remains the highest principle for both thinkers. regards Tobi
"The Power of Kant compels you" "The Power of Kant compels you" "The Power of Kant compels you"

Morrandir
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Posted 06/03/05 - 12:25 AM:	#3
Thank you guys, this has been a very interesting read Let's see if I can give any sort of response with my rather shaky knowledge on both of these fine philosophers. Tobias wrote: What are you doing to me Morrandir, I also need to do some work, first that Heidegger thingy and now this...mumble mumble grump grump :P Now I am not much at home in Kant himself. What I know of it comes from secundary litarature and mostly on literature on Hegel's appropriation of the principle. The same applies for me: my knowledge on Hegel is very limited, and I will have to appraise his sayings through my knowldge on Kant. But this is actually very interesting to compare these two philosophers this way. I am learning a lot - I am afraid that you are not learning that much, though, because knowing what Kant said doesn't at all include what Hegel said, but it does the other way around to some extent. Morrandir identified two characterisics of the synthetic unity. 1. the 'I think' meaning that we can reflect on our own judging. 2. Identity of the subject over time, 3. unification. The understanding unifies a manifold of possible objects (Kant says intuitions) into a comprehendable whole. For instance we see the letters and buttons on our computer has a whole,it would become a mess if we saw them as unrelated particulars. (Actually Morrandir covers this under transcendental subject) Yes, thank you for the clarificiation. I think I covered these. (1) is apperception, (2) is the continuity of this apperception (not mentioned but in passing) and (3) is the unity-part of Transcendental Unity of Apperception. In fact, it now occurred to me that I have made a mistake by forgetting one important part: manifold of sensible intuition. By this Kant means a set of intuitions, quite simply. He says that the "I think" must be able to accompany all of our manifolds of sensible intuitions in the same subject. That is exactly what you say in (3): we must be able to gather these individual, particular intuitions into wholes within our subject (the "I think"-part). This is very important, because it alone nullifies Hume's skeptical approach: the cognition is not a passive receptor, but actively organizes its perceptions, unlike Hume more or less assumed. This yields the following picture of the mind, or maybe understanding as a in potentia self consicous, reflexive, unifying unity. this all before any object comes into play, actually even before any subject comes into play! Any empirical subject, I must add. There is, of course, the transcendental subject. That would be a sort of, as you said, potential self-consciousness. It is pure activity not yet acting. Note that Kant is, I believe, trying to avoid the mystical implications of this: the transcendental subject is not some primordial being of pure activity that precedes all the empirical subjects. It is not an entity at all, but merely a transcendental limit of recognizing subjectivity as activity. Simply put, if experience is always the sum of two things, the thing in itself affecting the cognition in some way, and the cognition arranging this affection in some way, then it must be conceivable that these two exist independently. However, I am not sure of the validity of this way of thinking. For in this Kant seems to assume already that they can exist independently, but that need not be the case. We can assume that their existence is indeed only relative. Consider the case in which x is greater than y. Now Kant is saying (but this is heavily interpretation-laden! You will not find this in Kant) that x and y must first be conceived as something independent from each other, and then as set into the relation. This may be, but consider this: 5 is greater than 3. Can we really conceive 5 and 3 as independent, bearing no relation to each other? Is not in the nature of mathematics itself that the relation must always exist for the relatees to make sense? If we understand the concepts "5" and "3", we must be able to say that 5 = 3 + 2, that is, 5 is holds a place two notches higher in the number sequence than 3. If we can find things that exist purely through their relative nature, can we then think that Kant's idea that the thing in itself and the transcendental subject can be considered as separate? Kant falls silent. Enter Hegel. If I play baseball, Imust know that I am playing according to the rules of baseball and be able at least in principle to articulate these rules for myself Very Wittgensteinian (other way around, though, of course) Kant states that "The transcendental unity of apperception forms out of all possible appearances, which can stand alongside eachother in experience a connection fo this experience according to laws" A108 Pippin now states that thismeans the following: "Kant wants to maintain that if I could not become concscious of the rules I was applying in unifying my representations, in attempting to represent objects I would not be following rules or representing objects but merely associatively producing subjective states, states that since merely associated could not count as being representative states, as having objects or having experiences". (Pippin 2000) I am not sure of Pippin's interpretation. I think your analysis above was correct, but only in regards with consciousness, and conscious experience. Pippin seems to expand this to concern all states of mind that would hope to be representative. But my head is filled with processes that I am not conscious of, and some of them are probably in principle beyond my ability to be conscious of, but it still doesn't seem to entail that they do not represent anything. We both agree, I think, that we need not be conscious of these acts of our cognition, but it is enough that we could in principle be. I accept also that this is a necessary condition for self-conscious experience (is experience self-conscious for Kant? ), but is it a necessary condition for all experience? Pippin seems to maintain this. It is a stronger claim than I would be willing to make - perhaps I too am timid in the sense Kant was, according to Hegel I recgonize this point for what it is: the basis for the division between Kant and Hegel. Kant does let some things be unknown, but Hegel does not accept this. If Pippin is right here, I think it turns the tide for Hegel. But I am not that sure that he is. The analogy to playing a game doesn't really work, because playing a game is different from, say, moving. I cannot play a game if I don't know that I am playing a game (although one could retort that people are playing, say, relationship-games independent of whether they recognize this or not, but in this I would say that it is not a game at all - it only becomes such when someone looks at it from the outside and recognizes unspoken rules and repetitive patterns). But I can move if I cannot even principle know that I am moving. That is because "playing a game" is far more subjective a state than "moving" is. So we must be extra careful here. Just because we identify as "rules" both the laws according to which our understanding synthesises intuitions and as the principles that we follow in a game, it doesn't follow that they are the same thing. It seems to me that even if Pippin's interpretation would in the end turn out to be a correct one, it doesn't follow from what is being said here. I think Kant identifies the rules of synthesis as more like laws than rules of a game. We cannot help them - our understanding works automatically. It is the reason that we have a hold onto, but that has power only after the understanding has produced concepts for it. This reason may recognize the activity of subject for what it is, and it may chart the limits of cognition through examining the results of this activity - but there is nothing contradictory in saying that the reason cannot pass through the concepts it itself uses in its reasoning, it cannot pass through to the transcendental subject itself, to examine the pure activity as such. That is, even though we can recognize the laws of nature (and I emphasise: we do not need to in any sense know that we are acting according to them in order to follow them), we cannot recognize them all: we cannot go beyond the universe to examine the reasons it came into existence. The laws behind the laws, so to speak, are beyond us. The laws we can recognize are those that the understanding and sensibility use in their organizing of intuitions, but the laws behind those laws - the transcendental subject - is forever beyond our reach. Or so Kant is saying, I think. This means that at the heart of the transcendental deduction lies the claim that we can become conscious of our own activity regardimg the understanding of objects. It is this that decisively influenced Hegels programme and also this I think Morrandir will disagree with, but we will see. I think you are absolutely right. It is a comforting thought that amidst all this highly difficult and term-laden discussion we can at least identify clearly what it is that we disagree on, and what we must disagree on in order to defend Kant and Hegel, respectively. I think that Hegel (and Pippin) are reading a little bit too much into Kant. They might yet turn to out to have good reasons for that (and I am sure you will express some of them ), but it doesn't end that easily, Tobi . Problems in Kant The principle of synthetic unity of apperception is supposed to be a first principle, the principle that makes experience possible, that makes the appearance of an object as such possible. What than are all kinds of categories doing in Kant which supposedly lie before this principle? The most notable is 'sensable intuition'. This is what, a non-experience of something preconceptual? If it is an experience it is subordinate to the transcendental principle, if it is not how can we speak about it at all? Valid questions, but I am not sure they amount to undermine Kant. It seems to ignore the whole aspect of Kant's transcendental method of reflection. Kant is not speaking of somehow perceiving sensibile intuitions that are non-experiental, but is simply establishing their existence through careful analysis of our experience. This does not in turn prove that Kant was right, but it takes the sharpness of the counterarguments away, because they seem to depend on some experience of the non-experiental. This is not what Kant is doing. Remember that Kant spoke of Transcendental Logic. He is inferring, not experiencing. Our experiences are our experiences, and through experience they cannot, quite evidently, overcome. But this is fixed by our ability to reason. I can reason that because I hear a bump in the wall before me, something beyond the wall caused it - even though I have no experience of such something. I will repeat Westphal's interpretation: Kant is identifying some of our key cognitive capacities by identifying some of our key cognitive INcapacities. This principle of synthetic unity of apperception is for Kant a step in the proof of the Categories. It is, in fact, NOT the first principle: it is the principle of self-consciousness of empirical subjects, but Kant labours to show in the Deduction that this synthetic unity of apperception is possible only through categories. It is in fact the Categories that does the uniting that we spoke of earlier: it is not enough for Kant to say that "something must unite the manifold of sensory intuition", but he is trying to expose those somethings. The Categories are the rules according to which this unity of apperception functions. This is actually very clearly present in the passage where he speaks of this principle. The synthetic unity of apperception is subsumed under the Categories. It is not a first principle. It is only first in the sense that Kant is starting out from consciousness, whose immediate necessary condition this principle is. Through transcendental reflection he is able to (or assumably is) to prove that the Categories are behind this uniting activity. If you are really in a box or behind a fence, how can you know there is something behind it? The categories are not behind the fence. They ARE the fence. At this moment, I will not wish to delve into the problematic of Ding an Sich. We had a nice little chat about that earlier, remember? Intuition and thing in itself are moot concepts. They are not necessary for understanding the world. The box is all there is, there is no outside the box. That means that theoretically everything can be understood rationally. Nonetheless, this seems to me to be a good way of expressing what Hegel is up to. The same goes for another dychotomy kept by Kant but actually redundant the dychotomy between subject and object. The charge against Kant is that he totally annihilates the objective and puts all emphasis on the subject side while it is not necessary. Morrandir wrote: we have knowledge of our own mental states, and trying to prove that this is only possible if we can have knowledge of external objects as well - that is, the necessary condition of subjective experience is experience of objects. Certainly, but by placing the conceptual notions (the categories) on the subjective side Kant annihilated the possibility of the object as anything else but the incoherent intuition or the equally incoherent nouymenon or Ding an sich. Well, I don't think this is warranted. We must always bear in mind that Kant distinguished between the transcendental and the empirical level. The transcendental level is the level where we consider the experience itself, and in the empirical level we consider the objects of experience. Kant does not annihilate the objective, because it is always there: in the empirical level. It is not annihilated in the transcendental level either, but is reduced to a mere logical implication (it couldn't be otherwise). The objects are simply appearances. The computer before me is an object. But it is not an object per se. Not the object in itself - but only a object as viewed by me, a cognizing subject. I will pass by the remarks of the incoherency of those concepts, because I do not agree and the arguments have been presented elsewhere in this post. The problem becomes pressing if we investigate what the transcendental subject does. It is pure movement, but not movement regarding to something. (It in fact calls Aristotle's causa sui to mind which is pure thinking of itslef and that seems what the trnacendental subject is doing all the time. The transcendental subject doesn't relate himslef with objects. That is a big problem. It basically means it has no relation to the world, it is in Platonic terms 'Xoris', 'detached', unknowable and for pure activity suprisingly inactive. That I think is true. The transcendental subject as a theoretical limit is indeed pure activity detached from the objects of activity. As the thing in itself is a pure object detached from subjectivity that would cognize it. The pure subjectivity has no relation to the object, true, as the pure objectivity has no relation to the subject. Here lies a problem that Hegel wants to tackle. Hegel asserts as said that it is Kants problem that he isn't radical enough. That he only attaches subjective meaning to the transcendental principle and that he doesn't deduce the categories from this principle itself, that it is just a justification of them. He called this notoriously 'the fall of science'. It is true that he doesn't deduce the categories solely from this principle - but he uses it as the starting point of his transcendental deduction of the categories. You will have to excuse me, for I must back up my knowledge on Kant to see whether Hegel is right in my mind. I think I have a vague memory that the transcendental unity of apperception is present in all the steps of the Deduction, and if this is so, then Hegel's argument doesn't bite. But another matter remains, in the meantime: what is the difference between justification and deduction here? In fact, for Kant the deduction IS justification - he says that in the beginning of the Deduction. If I justify my claim that pi is irrational by producing the proof, am I not deducing pi's irrationality through this justification? Hegel holds that Kant didn't recognise hisown principle for what it was, not a subjective principle which leads to all kinds of dualisms, but an absolute principle. Kant didn't stumble over a subjective principle, but over the true identity between subject and object! Kant's system is very wobbly because of the dualisms, granted. It would be a fine thing indeed if it should become rooted in one absolute principle. The unity of apperception is according to Hegel an absolute principle, that means it lies even before the emergence of subject and object. That is not such a crazy thought since if it is that principle itself that makes experience possible it is also that principle that makes this experience have the for of a subject experiencing an object. No, I don't think so. It has a logical flaw as it stands: just because it is a necessary condition of experience, it doesn't follow that it precedes subjectivity and objectivity. Heck, even subjectivity itself is a necessary condition for experience! In fact, Kant thinks that all cognition is composed of that-which-cognizes and that-which-is-cognized. BOTH are necessary conditions of experience, and so Kant is very coherent with himself: the former is the transcendental subject and the latter is the thing in itself. Their combination produces the experiences, and thus in this synthesis of the I and the non-I in the Fichtean terminology the phenomenal, experienced, world is born. This in effect reformulates the subjective objective dualism. If there is a conceptual structure in place needed before we can speak of an object, than it is these concepts themselves that are 'objective' namely constitıutive of an object. Since the transcendental principle implies self consciousness, i.e. the possibility of learning the concepts that must be in place, a science directed towards these concepts is objective. I think this is correct in principle. Basically: this is valid if the premises are accepted. Which they are not Hegel hade some other qualms with, Kant, namely that his deduction is excessively formal. Kant's subject is only a formal unity, that has no genuine interaction with the objectsand which does not change in this interaction. I am not sure what this means, but the last step of the Deduction is supposed to link the categories and thus the cognition in general to the content of sensibility, the objects themselves. He isn't that successful, though. The grpounding of the subject and object duychotomy in a necessary identity allows Hegel to formulate a theory by which the subject and object relate, are different within identity. This opened the door to historicity and time as categories with which to analyse our understanding, self consciousness. Hegel deduces the categories dialectically in teh logic and not statically as Kant did, but these are in effect considerations apart from the transcedentals unity of apperception,which remains the highest principle for both thinkers. Thank you oh so very much of this fine presentation, Tobi! I have learned a lot I will return to Isaiah's Fichte-presentation (which came as a very happy surprise!) later on. It is fun to have all these three great minds represented in a single thread concerning the same thing. This might become the best thread I have taken part in, yet! ~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

NoSoul
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Posted 06/03/05 - 10:05 AM:	#4
Morrandir wrote: ...The Principle of Transcendental Unity of Apperception is then the principle which alone gives rise to consciousness. It is something that is actual to the philosophy of mind even today, and something that has been in various forms of a host of philosophers since Kant - including, to name a few, Hegel, Husserl and Wittgenstein. Fascinating. I agree that this has strongly influenced many, including IMO pretty much all modern neuroscience even as most neuro/cognitive scientists assert that Kant = Descartes and is irrelevant. Also, I really appreciate your explanation here since, for one thing, it helps me understand & articulate Husserl's Transcendental Ego. 3. The Transcendental Subject ...Kant's idea of understanding [is that it is] something that arranges experiences and conceives them. One important thing to understand about understanding is that it is active. The sensibility mainly receives passively, whereas the understanding actively organizes the intuitions received by the sensibility. Kant's idea is simple: each and every perception is always singular, particular. In order for there to be any wholes at all, the mind must organize the singular perceptions into conceivable wholes. From this Kant then concludes (through lengthy additions, as always) that the basic way for a subject to be is to act. The subject is not merely active, but subjectivity IS activity. The transcendental subject is the necessary condition of any subjective experiences. But the transcendental subject is not some material being, but in fact it is pure activity. What the subject brings to the matter given by the object is the activity through arranging. ...[T]he necessary condition for any cognition is that there is some object that is cognized, and some subject that does the cognizing. Whereas the thing in itself is pure objectivity, the transcendental subject is pure subjectivity. The transcendental subject is subjectivity stripped of all the influence of objects. And for Kant, the transcendental subject is pure activity without any objects of activity... ...Kant turns from substantial conception of mind to processual (we are still waiting for some philosophers of mind to enter the 19th century with Kant). The consciousness is a constant process of self-recognition. This has actually received a lot of scientific evidence lately, because it seems that memory plays a crucial role in consciousness and personality: the continuity of self-recognition is the basis of consciousness. This is what is Kant's message here. What is this activity? What recognizes? The understanding, of course, as said before, but that is not enough. It is the transcendental subject, the pure activity of subjectivity that is the act of recognition. Kant is not, notoriously so, very clear at this point. For this raises the question: what is this pure activity? Shouldn't it be based on something - something that acts? Okay, this is what I'd like to touch on. One important thing which I think must be observed is that at least one extremely, incredibly important conceptual revolution took place after Kant which seems to me vitally important to dealing with this question, "If subjectivity is activity, what is that which is doing the acting?" E = mc^2 That is, energy is matter. Since Einstein, we've been informed (however disputedly or certainly) that, in the most literal, if incomprehensible, way possible, matter is energy, and thus, quite literally, "being" is "becoming," and object is activity. This is profoundly counterintuitive, of course. From Parmenides ("What is, is") through Leibniz's monads, and so on, the idea has been absolutely persistent in Western culture that "ultimate reality" must ultimately comprise objects and particles, with the further implication that all particle-objects must interact with each other via further tinier particles which carry information. Think of Leibniz's monads. Monads represent the ultimate conceptualization of "Pure Being." Rationally, Leibniz reasoned that true Being must be monadic; but this fails to address the contradictory evidence that, while many things are separate, many things nonetheless interact with other things; and, further, that things all change, never remain the same. It seems to me that modern particle physics idealistically attempts to retain Leibniz's monadology, in that physics claims that all matter is made up of particles, but also that all energy & waves, etc. are also made up of particles. Nonetheless, according to the strict Rationalism of Leibniz et. al., the ultimate nature of "how" particles (either matter or energy) are able to interact at all remains absolutely problematic. Now, the deBroglie equation & the wave-particle duality in physics (in addition to Einstein's E=mc^2) tell us that, somehow, waves & particles are the same (while Superstring theory seems to tell us that this apparent contradiction is actually a false dichotomy, and that ultimate reality is neither wave nor particle, ultimately -- though I don't really understand it). So, if we are now permitted to speculate that ultimate reality is actually wave-like instead of particulate in nature, what logical conclusions do we reach then? If everything is actually wave-like, not particulate, then, in effect, there is no such literal thing as Being. There is only Becoming. In effect, there is no such thing as pure Object, only pure Activity. Thus, in a very legitimized philosophical way, it seems perfectly consistent with modern physics to view all Objects as actually Activities. This is very counterintuitive. To begin, our very language, I think -- apparently most if not all human languages if I'm not mistaken, but obviously including English & most Indo-European languages -- are firmly rooted in the "Object-Predicate" or "Noun-Verb" dichotomy. That is, it is firmly rooted in our everyday language to articulate all phenomena in fundamental terms of "Object-doing-Activity." It is nearly impossible to even think or imagine a worldview or a metaphysics in which we don't a-priori conceptualize "activity" as occurring without an "object" doing that activity. But what if Kant was, however unintentionally, actually technically & literally correct, and we cannot absolutely conceive of "pure objects" or things-in-themselves precisely because, in our best scientific methodological models, we cannot even actually retain the very concept of "object" at all? ...Kant...assumes consciousness, and only tries to chart the boundaries of consciousness. As he ends up saying that nothing can be said of the transcendental subject beyond its effects that we see as its activity (much like with the thing in itself), then he must, in order to be coherent, leave the question as to the nature of the transcendental subject ultimately unanswered. To him, the question is about something something transcendent, something beyond the limits of our cognition, and thus, basically, meaningless. Another way to characterize this, I think, is to recognize that Kant's own concept of Ding an Sich would logically apply as equally to Transcendental Subject as to things-in-themselves. That is, while Transcendental Subject is, of course as you say, completely polar-opposite of transcendental object, in a technical way, they both share the common feature of being "objects" & therefore Ding an Sich when we attempt to know them. To characterize (or even to attempt to characterize) Subject (including Transcendental Subject) is actually to attempt to objectify it -- which immediately reintroduces the entire gamut of problems associated with attempting to know any object as Ding an Sich. The transcendental subject as a theoretical limit is indeed pure activity detached from the objects of activity. As the thing in itself is a pure object detached from subjectivity that would cognize it. The pure subjectivity has no relation to the object, true, as the pure objectivity has no relation to the subject. I would add, in relation to what I discussed a little above, Einstein's equation is E=mc^2, which is to say, "energy is (essentially) matter," not that "all is energy only, but matter does not exist." That is, there is almost a Hegelian endless cycle in which matter/particles/objects interact endlessly, at all levels, and in fantastically relativistic ways with energy/waves/activity. Activity might always require an object to do activity; but at the same time, all object is activity. And so on, ad-infinitum, a perpetual, ceaseless paradox. So there is almost a sort of comfort to me to conceive of pure subjectivity-as-activity as being ultimately a type of object, by virtue of being activity.
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

Morrandir
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Posted 06/03/05 - 12:41 PM:	#5
NoSoul wrote: pretty much all modern neuroscience even as most neuro/cognitive scientists assert that Kant = Descartes and is irrelevant. It is simply wrong. It is outrageous how easily so many simply go with the misconceptions and never check if the claims have anything to do with reality. Kant simply isn't Cartesian dualist, and that is that. There is nothing that could justify such an error - I believe it has something to do with Kant trying to refute skepticism from Cartesian principles (because he is trying to refute the skepticism arising from those principles), so he is mistakenly thought to be a Cartesian philosopher. Those misunderstandings get to live, because most philosophers are intellectually too lazy to think for themselves. Since Kant was grossly misinterpreted in the early 20th century, he hasn't been accepted, even though each of those misconceptions have been shown to be false a long time ago. Assumptions such as Quine refuting Kantian distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions live on, even though it is Carnap's interpretation of that distinction that he disproves, and for a good reason: Kant was not as stupid as Carnap, who totally messed up the whole distinction. E = mc^2 That is, energy is matter. Since Einstein, we've been informed (however disputedly or certainly) that, in the most literal, if incomprehensible, way possible, matter is energy, and thus, quite literally, "being" is "becoming," and object is activity. 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. This is profoundly counterintuitive, of course. As is pretty much every discovery in physics in 20th century. Think of Leibniz's monads. Monads represent the ultimate conceptualization of "Pure Being." Rationally, Leibniz reasoned that true Being must be monadic; but this fails to address the contradictory evidence that, while many things are separate, many things nonetheless interact with other things; and, further, that things all change, never remain the same. Note that Leibniz's monads are actually sort of mental particulars. They are not matter. (That is, they are not atoms.) It seems to me that modern particle physics idealistically attempts to retain Leibniz's monadology, in that physics claims that all matter is made up of particles, but also that all energy & waves, etc. are also made up of particles. 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. Now, the deBroglie equation & the wave-particle duality in physics (in addition to Einstein's E=mc^2) tell us that, somehow, waves & particles are the same (while Superstring theory seems to tell us that this apparent contradiction is actually a false dichotomy, and that ultimate reality is neither wave nor particle, ultimately -- though I don't really understand it). 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. If everything is actually wave-like, not particulate, then, in effect, there is no such literal thing as Being. There is only Becoming. In effect, there is no such thing as pure Object, only pure Activity. The contemporary process ontology deals with this. And I think it is very plausible: what the reality consists of is not stationary objects or substance, but processes. These processes give rise to particular objects in much the same sense as almost empty stationary waves known as atoms give rise to such concrete objects as tables. This is very counterintuitive. To begin, our very language, I think -- apparently most if not all human languages if I'm not mistaken, but obviously including English & most Indo-European languages -- are firmly rooted in the "Object-Predicate" or "Noun-Verb" dichotomy. That is, it is firmly rooted in our everyday language to articulate all phenomena in fundamental terms of "Object-doing-Activity." It is nearly impossible to even think or imagine a worldview or a metaphysics in which we don't a-priori conceptualize "activity" as occurring without an "object" doing that activity. This is true, and probably very much based on the fact that 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. But what if Kant was, however unintentionally, actually technically & literally correct, and we cannot absolutely conceive of "pure objects" or things-in-themselves precisely because, in our best scientific methodological models, we cannot even actually retain the very concept of "object" at all? Just because objects would be activity, it does not actually follow that there are no objects at all. Just as it does not follow that there is no such thing as "heat" just because heat is reducible to the motion of particles. Or that there is no such a thing as gravity, because it is only a relation between masses. The concept of object is legitimate even if only processes exist. It only changes our view of those objects: there is no stationary substance that remains the same in every change, because ultimately everything is changing. That is, while Transcendental Subject is, of course as you say, completely polar-opposite of transcendental object, in a technical way, they both share the common feature of being "objects" & therefore Ding an Sich when we attempt to know them. That is not strictly true. The Ding an Sich is a pure object, but the transcendental subject is a pure subject. We can, of course, objectify the transcendental subject, and we indeed must do this when we attempt to cognize it, but we then would only grasp the transcendental subject as an object, not as it truly is: a subject. Trying to cognize the subject as itself, as a subject, is doomed to failure, because cognizing demands an object. In that case the subject-as-a-subject would try to cognize the subject-as-an-object. But this does not get a grip on what the subject really is, no more than I get a grip on what my friend really feels like, when I see that he is in pain. 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. To characterize (or even to attempt to characterize) Subject (including Transcendental Subject) is actually to attempt to objectify it -- which immediately reintroduces the entire gamut of problems associated with attempting to know any object as Ding an Sich. It is not the same problem, even though it is associated with the same underlying reason. 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". ~M~ Edited by Morrandir on 06/03/05 - 12:50 PM
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

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Posted 06/03/05 - 02:25 PM:	#6
First, I want to say that this is a very interesting thread. I haven't had the balls to study Kant yet (or Hegel, for that matter) but I think Morrandir's initial post was exceptionally clear and to the point and it feels to me like secondary literature to reading Kant himself. I've never read Kant before but I feel like I understand parts of his philosophy from reading this. Other than that, I just want to put forth a couple of specific questions and points that have been raised in this thread. Morrandir wrote: The latin verb transcendere means "to surpass", to go or be beyond something. Kant distinguishes sharply between the transcendent (that which is beyond something) and the transcendental. The latter is very important in Kantian philosophy: the transcendental is something which lies in the border of something - in Kantian philosophy, basically in the limit of our cognitive capacities. So if x is transcendent, it lies beyond a fence. If x is immanent (a term that Kant is rarely if ever interested in), then it is on this side of the fence. If x is transcendental, then it is on the fence - perhaps a property of the fence in question. The idea is, thus, actually rather simple, if one can get over the horrid word . Doesn't the transcendental, then, violate the law of the excluded middle? Let me put it this way: if the transcendent is that which surpasses the limit of our cognitive capacities (IOW, we can't know or imagine anything transcendent) and the immanent is that which we can know or imagine, then can we know or imagine the transcendental which you say is on the fence? It seems like, being on the fence, that it must be both within and beyond our cognitive abilities which seems to be serious problem. NoSoul wrote: That is, energy is matter. Since Einstein, we've been informed (however disputedly or certainly) that, in the most literal, if incomprehensible, way possible, matter is energy, and thus, quite literally, "being" is "becoming," and object is activity. Actually, I think that depends on how you interpret that equation. The equation is showing how the amount of matter produced is equal to the amount of energy produced, it doesn't claim that matter and energy are the same thing, nor does it claim that a thing is both matter and energy at the same time. However, if I recall correctly, there is other physics that tries to demonstrate this. I remember in AP Chemistry class how we were given example problems on how to calculate the wave-frequency of a baseball to show how the equation worked as well on tangible objects as on sub-atomic particles. But you have a lot more convincing to do before I'll be willing to admit that "being" is "becoming". In my ontology, they aren't compatible. NoSoul wrote: That is, while Transcendental Subject is, of course as you say, completely polar-opposite of transcendental object, in a technical way, they both share the common feature of being "objects" & therefore Ding an Sich when we attempt to know them. The way I understand Morrandir's post, I think what you are doing is flawed. I think you're going back to Cartesian subjectivism when you try to treat the subject as an object. I think Kant is trying to say that the transcendental subject isn't an object and any attempt to treat it as an object would mean trying to speak of something that we have no right to speak of. The same problem, incidentally, I think exists with the thing-in-itself if it is at the same time claimed that the thing-in-itself is transcendent.
"To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add sheep was a tautology." Mark Twain

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Posted 06/03/05 - 02:35 PM:	#7
Morrandir wrote: It is not the same problem, even though it is associated with the same underlying reason. 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". Okay, I'm going to say this just to make sure my understanding coheres with yours. This sounds to me a lot like when Nietzsche claims that properties are anthropomorphic. That is, for example, when we say that "Stone is hard" in language we are trying to attribute hardness to the stone. But hardness is really a description of the object from our senses. If our hands were somehow made of a material several times harder, we could say "Stone is soft" and the proposition would still be true. And then there's the question of what "Bricks are red" means when you are color blind, or what anything means when you are a wasp or an eel. It's a tricky problem, but would I be correct in saying that Kant would say that we can't solve it because we are not a wasp or an eel?
"To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add sheep was a tautology." Mark Twain

Tobias
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Posted 06/04/05 - 02:59 AM:	#8
Ok, back to business.... ehh first an apology th Isaiah... Hamann eh well you see ermm I really don't know much about Hamann to give you 'my thoughts' on him. What I came across was interesting and he seemed a frerunner to existentailist thought. One of the gadflies of the idealist movement. He also seemed to anticipate Wittgenstein in his expositions on language. Actually what I came across made him seem like a wittgenstein avant la lettre, applying the self referentiality problem and giving a first notion of 'what one cannot speak about....' Like wittgenstein he immunised religion from rational argument reportedly using Hume. but really that is allI knwo and is like groping in the dark. Now back to Kant and a principle cherished by all it seems.... What I will do now is focus solely on some problems perceived in Kant and I will say something on the relation between Hegel and Fichte. I will do that by pointing towards problems in Kant arising out of in Morrandir's explication. Lets begin with the beginning of experience in Kan: intuition. Intuition Kant deduces the presence of intuitions through logic, Morrandir is right. So that should take care of the counter argument that we experience something non experiential. I don't think it does though. Kant here created some category of things unexperiencable, but still having some effect. But than he should tell us what that effect is and what the difference is of that effect and experience. Intuition implies something is intuited, hence experienced as intuition. Kant though remains silent and tells us we can not know anything of such what 'experiences?' what else can I call them. Kant tells us that there are things, an object, that cannot itself be grasped as an object. But by saying thishe already grasped this as an object. What Kant I think mistreats is this sense of immediate awareness. He posits this, it is a logical category which he reasons into existence but experiencing its existence lies beyond us. Kant ontologises the products of reflection, something wich he on his own terms is not allowed to do. Hegel also uses immediate awareness, but here he remains cosnscious of the fact that this is only a state comprehendable by thought, but not in this world. Kant forgets that. Empirical level and transcendental level In Kant we indeed have two different levels.The empirica of cognition and the transcendental which is about the organisation of experience. Can this strict separation be held? I doubt it. If the level is really transcendental, the edges of the box, how can we identify it, empirically that can't be because than itwould be an experience as any other but in the experience as any other the transcendental level is not perceived, only potentially perceived. This section can make clear what I mean Morrandir: The transcendental level is the level where we consider the experience itself, and in the empirical level we consider the objects of experience. Kant does not annihilate the objective, because it is always there: in the empirical level. It is not annihilated in the transcendental level either, but is reduced to a mere logical implication. Can the experience it self be seperated from the object of experience? It seems to me to be the same thing. we experience an object, we don't experience empty experience. This ties in with Hegels objection that Kant's deduction is too formal. It detaches things which cannot be detached. Here the object of experience from experience. The objects are simply appearances. The computer before me is an object. But it is not an object per se. Not the object in itself - but only a object as viewed by me, a cognizing subject. This seems problematic. Why is my computer just an appearance? What else is it besides a computer? The computer seems to me to be a computer in itself too. What value has saying 'well it is only an apearance it could be something else' if we don2t have any access to that something else? If we cannot know it is something else, how can it be somethimng else? Kant in effect creates a different world behind this one, but it leads to an infinite regress. If trhis is only an appearance, why is not the noumenon only an appearance to? What guarantees that this noumenon world is the real one? We have no guarantee, we have no access. Why than not just stick with what we have? If the noumenon odesn't explain the sensible world, what use is it? Even if it doesn't lead to an infinite regress, it explains nothing. The relation between the subjective and the objective Here we find I think the biggest problem in Kant, how does Kant constitute the relation between the subjective and objective? Morrandir: That I think is true. The transcendental subject as a theoretical limit is indeed pure activity detached from the objects of activity. As the thing in itself is a pure object detached from subjectivity that would cognize it. The pure subjectivity has no relation to the object, true, as the pure objectivity has no relation to the subject. If this is true Kant is in dire straits,because of this on the transcendental subject: the transcendental subject is not some primordial being of pure activity that precedes all the empirical subjects. It is not an entity at all, but merely a transcendental limit of recognizing subjectivity as activity. Simply put, if experience is always the sum of two things, the thing in itself affecting the cognition in some way, and the cognition arranging this affection in some way, then it must be conceivable that these two exist independently. The connection between objective and subjective is severed, how can there be cognition possible at all? you might say that it is still possible through us, but we don't have access to neither the noumenon, nor transcendental subjectivity. From thisin fact follows Hegels claim that all knowledge is self knowledge, see what is done here: OBJECT <---> Cognization <---> SUBJECT. But the gorund of object and subject is inaccessable which leaves only the cogniser as accessable so all knowledge we have if of the cogniser cognising himself and his categories and objects for him and subjectivity of him. Actually the to do Morrandri credit, the problem is recognised by Morrandir in the beginning of the post: However, I am not sure of the validity of this way of thinking. For in this Kant seems to assume already that they can exist independently, but that need not be the case. We can assume that their existence is indeed only relative. Consider the case in which x is greater than y. Now Kant is saying (but this is heavily interpretation-laden! You will not find this in Kant) that x and y must first be conceived as something independent from each other, and then as set into the relation. This may be, but consider this: 5 is greater than 3. Can we really conceive 5 and 3 as independent, bearing no relation to each other? Is not in the nature of mathematics itself that the relation must always exist for the relatees to make sense? If we understand the concepts "5" and "3", we must be able to say that 5 = 3 + 2, that is, 5 is holds a place two notches higher in the number sequence than 3. That would mean we cannot escape finding some origen for the relation between subject and object. Luckily we have that! Found by Kant, namely the transcendental unity of apperception! Transcendental unity as absolute principle Now M. states that for Kant the stranscendental unity ,is in fact given by the categories and I wouldn't doubt that, but we can also consider it in itself. As said before the transcendental unity makes experience possible of a subject that is selfconsicious, identical through time and unifying a manifold of impressions. Ok, but that seems that a subject and an object must be in place before we can talk of this unity, but does it really? Is not also the division subject and object a matter of experience? Can it not be that the transcendental unity, the absolute itself creates these oppositions within itself? Kant presupposes the subject object dychotomy but never proves its necessity. Here Hegel inverts Kant's transcendental subject and makes it the source of the subject object distinction itself. subject(subject-object) The activity of the subject consists of dividing and unifying itself. This is heavily influenced by Fichte's 'tathandlung'setting an opposition between I and not I, -as explained by Isaiah above- but Hegel is not satified here because we still seem to have the distinction between the transcendental subject and the noumenon. This division is not real though, it is a product of this dividing of itself what is one. There is no division between transcendental subject and noumenon. they are the same. hegel calls this 'substance as subject'. their is no world as things really are and movement that grasps this and a cogniser hapless in between. The world itself is activity and determines both emprical subject and object. So we arrive at a historical idealism. Everything is product of spirit,which is like Morrandir explained the transcendental subject not some creature above us, it just means that the world develops rationally and that we asparts of that world can undrerstand that development. The self consciousness theme Much seems to hinge on our possibility of self consicousness and that means understanding the laws of how experience would be possible. Morrandir states that Kant wants to go less far than Hegel in that respect. Maybe we can check discuss the nature of experience a little. Morrandir: We both agree, I think, that we need not be conscious of these acts of our cognition, but it is enough that we could in principle be. I accept also that this is a necessary condition for self-conscious experience (is experience self-conscious for Kant? ), but is it a necessary condition for all experience? Pippin seems to maintain this. It is a stronger claim than I would be willing to make - perhaps I too am timid in the sense Kant was, according to Hegel The analogy to playing a game doesn't really work, because playing a game is different from, say, moving. I cannot play a game if I don't know that I am playing a game (although one could retort that people are playing, say, relationship-games independent of whether they recognize this or not, but in this I would say that it is not a game at all - it only becomes such when someone looks at it from the outside and recognizes unspoken rules and repetitive patterns). But I can move if I cannot even principle know that I am moving. That is because "playing a game" is far more subjective a state than "moving" is. It depends on what having an experience is. We can move without knowing that we move, but if we experience movng we must be able to know and articulate for ourselves the laws of movement. That is I think what Pippin is getting at. We cannot help them - our understanding works automatically. It is the reason that we have a hold onto, but that has power only after the understanding has produced concepts for it. This reason may recognize the activity of subject for what it is, and it may chart the limits of cognition through examining the results of this activity - but there is nothing contradictory in saying that the reason cannot pass through the concepts it itself uses in its reasoning, it cannot pass through to the transcendental subject itself, to examine the pure activity as such. This seems to me to be the starting point of Hegelian idealism. The question now becomes how does reason give itself concepts. According ot Hegel this happens historically and through the necessary imbalances in other concepts. One concept invites the other, through the concstant self articualation and inherent 'brokenness' of spirit. (see the section on the activity of spirit as continiuous division and self opposition above. This creates all kinds of problems, mostr notably the self referential problem, how for instance can we know the concepts that will be produced by the concepts produced themselves. An even bigger problem is the relation fo these concepts to nature which Hegel adimits seems to reject conceptualisation. All valid problems on Hegels plate. we cannot go beyond the universe to examine the reasons it came into existence. The laws behind the laws, so to speak, are beyond us. Yes but are there laws behind laws, is such a notion not vacuous? Are not the laws just all there is and explanation of them to ourselves all we need to know? regards, Iw ill try to come back more elaborately to Fichte and Hegel.... Tobi
"The Power of Kant compels you" "The Power of Kant compels you" "The Power of Kant compels you"

Utter Cunt
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Posted 06/07/05 - 01:48 PM: Subject: from the pages of the transcendental aesthetic	#9
My two philosophical cents: once the concept of the thing in itself is read in a metaphysical fashion as opposed to an epistemological one (limit or boundary), it will invariably generate ontological brainfarts like those of the German Idealists. I was instructed on this point by an astute kantian scholar when I let my attempt at criticizing the substance ontology of philosophers get the best of me. Nonetheless, my favorite part of the critque remains the Dialectic. The thing in itself is a grundbegriff, rather than an ontological entity of any sort. For Kant the grundbegriff is a limit of the 'sensible-faculty-of-knowledge' (Anschauungen). I suspect the english translators use the word "sensibility" for Anschauungen, which may lead to ambiguity or worse, misreadings that generate confusion or false representations. In the critical part of Kant's philosophy he was trying to do antimetaphysics. That means it is a mistake to posit the thing-in-itself as a transcendental object that is fundamentally 'inaccessible' for all time. Instead of an "object" it is a border or a limit, for according to transcendental idealism, there is no such "object" independent of the Anschauungen, the sensible-faculty-of-knowledge, not even in the most vague or obliquely indirect sense. Ergo, our knowledge, the understanding or the conceptions of objects as object is to be dismissed, especially the ambiguous "thing-in-itself" as some identity point of existence. As long the thing-in-itself is understood as grundbegriff, and Kants philosophy is understood as transcendental idealism, then all attempts at rectification are impossible. To even entertain the possibility of rectification is to seriously misunderstand transcendental idealism and gag on copious amount of philosophical straw. The effort of rectification, by shifting to an atomic or subatomic level of explanation is merely already conditioned by a more fundamental level. As an analogy, to illustrate the impossibility of rectification, in the natural sciences, whenever the level of explanation is being employed, it already is parasistic upon the concepts of sensibility. Even though a level of explanation may well be non-sensible (atomic units or subatomic quanta of energy) the very concepts in use are already understood by the conditions of space and time. In other words an atom is an entity located within space and time coordinates. Another way to look at it is kant's claim that the conditions of the sensible-faculty-of-understanding are necessary. Once they are mistaken as contingent, then the possibility of rectification follows. Edited by Utter Cunt on 06/08/05 - 12:38 AM. Reason: misspelled german terms
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Tobias
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Posted 06/08/05 - 12:10 AM:	#10
But even as 'Grenzbegriff' it is on the doorstep of incoherency. If you identify a border you imply you can pass it. That is, how do you identify a border without standing on it and looking to the other side? 'Border' gives me the idea of absolute division, would the term 'horizon' be useful to describe Ding an Sich? Complements to Isaiah by the way. Edited by Tobias on 06/08/05 - 12:24 AM
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