Days 13 & 14:
Transcendental
Deduction & Transcendental Imagination
Quotes
Synthesis and Unification
Apprehension & Combination/Connection
Multiple Personality Examples
Transcendental/ Pure/ Original vs. Empirical Apperception
Transcendental deduction
Imagination
Schemata
Read CPR 160-187
Quotes
By the end of todays class, CPR-B143 should start to make sense
to you. If it doesnt, come to see me soon.
Apprehension:
CPR-B160-165; 182-184
(Opt: CPR-A98-125; 143-145)
Connection:
CPR-B90-115; 164-165; 178-185
Synthesis and Unification
To unify or synthesize things is to say that those things belong together
For Kant, unification or synthesis takes place in different stages
Apprehension & Combination/Connection
Apprehension is a very low-level synthesizing of intuition
Combination is a higher-level synthesizing of that which has been
apprehended
Multiple Personality Examples
Introducing Mr. X
Mr. X has three personalities:
Huey, Dewey, and Louie
The point of the examples is to show that certain elements need to be
unified for an individual before we can say that there is a thought present or
thinking going on.
Transcendental/ Pure/ Original vs.
Empirical Apperception
Apperception is a kind of self-awareness
Just as intuitions have empirical and pure dimensions, so too
apperception have empirical and dimensions
Roughly, the unity of self is to apperception (its pure part) what space
and time are to intuition (its pure parts)
Transcendental/ Pure/ Original vs.
Empirical Apperception
The unity of apperception is a condition for the possibility of thought/
experience
This is why for any thought or experience it is always possible preface
that thought or experience with an I think
or I experience
Transcendental Deduction
In the B-deduction, sections 16-18 are an attempt to show that the
transcendental unity of apperception is required for there to be any kind of
thought/experience (i.e. apprehension and combination presuppose the
transcendental unity of apperception).
Section 19 is an attempt to show that the logical functions of judgment
are required to bring intuitions and concepts into one consciousness
Transcendental Deduction
(1) Transcendental unity of apperception is necessary if we are going
to be able to use intuitions to have any kind of knowledge.
(2) Apperceptions of the contents of your consciousness are always in
the form of some sort of judgment.
(3) Ultimately, the judgments involved either are or are derived from
the basic judgments.
Transcendental Deduction
(4) The application of each of the basic judgments involves the
application of the concomitant basic categories.
(5) Therefore, any attempt by the understanding to make use of
intuitions to generate knowledge will require application of the categories. In
other words, any attempt to think about objects in a way that could possibly
generate knowledge requires the application of the categories.
Imagination
For Kant, imagination is the faculty of representing an object that is
not itself present (CPR-B151).
Imagination engages in a kind of synthesis
Imagination acts as a bridge between understanding and sensibility; it
is an operation of the understanding on sensibility: CPR-B152.
Imagination
(1) how does the imagination function as a bridge between sensibility and
understanding?
(2) how does the imagination synthesize?
Answer: by making use of the transcendental schemata.
Schemata
Schema and schemata
Reproductive imagination vs.
productive (or pure a priori or transcendental) imagination
CPR-B152; 179-181
Schemata
What do empirical schemata give us?
What do transcendental schemata give us?
How does all of this factor into the role of the categories (and connect
up with the transcendental unity of apperception and time)?