GENERAL CLAIM

Kant: Epistemology and Metaphysic Lecture 5

A. The Categories of the Understanding (Read CPR B74-109 (pp. 92-119)I. Possibility of Knowledge:

We cannot have a priori knowledge of empirical objects, however we can have a priori knowledge of the possibility for empirical object (to be)! I.e., we can know the conditions of possibility for the experience of empirical objects.

Kant thereby does not articulate a metaphysics of the mind but a metaphysics of reality: We can know the most fundamental structure of reality namely the structure that inheres to any possible empirical object of experience.

II. Condition of the possibility for Experience

'Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind' (CPR. A51/B76)

1. Intuition:It designates non-discursive as distinct from discursive awareness. It itself is not a property or set of properties.

It is a singular representation (repraesentatio singularis) and it "refers immediately to its object" (A320/B377). It is important to note that the definition of intuition does not involve any reference to sensibility

It is in virtue of its immediacy that it is a direct nonconcpetual mode of representing. [eg incongruent counterparts can be intuited although they elude description in conceptual terms]We have two and only two forms of intuition namely, time and space2.Thought: a framework of concepts which yield connection, e.g. substance, cause interaction (Construction)

III. The Nature of ConceptsConcepts - The intellectual condition of human knowledge. A concept is rule for combining certain representations. Concepts are discursivePure Concepts: concepts that have their origin in the nature of thought (independent of experience). IV. Logic and Ontology

1) Formal Logic: is concerned merely with all thought in general without regard to objects. Metaphysical Deduction2) Transcendental logic is concerned with how the combinations of concepts in a judgment relate to something given. This is the inquiry into being. Transcendental DeductionOnly 2 is ontology!

V. The Table of the Categories (from Aristotle) The Clue to the Discovery of all Pure Concepts of the Understanding

Metaphysical deduction

In the metaphysical deduction the a priori origin of the categories has been proved through their complete agreement with the general logical functions of thoughts. They can be discovered by studying the logical forms of judgments/propositions

All x are b = concept of unity the logical form of that judgment is not derived from experience.

Categories of understanding = Rules that are presupposed by and necessarily involved in every experience.Experience = judgment subsuming the particular (intuitions) under the general (concept)

Aim is to list all the forms of objective empirical judgments that are possible. (This is like crossing a great Arabian desert (Koerner))Quantity:

Every judgment is either

Universal: e.g. All men are mortal (unity)

Particular: Some men are mortal (plurality)

Singular: Socrates is mortal (totality)

QualityEvery judgment is either

Affirmative: All men are mortal (reality)

Negative: It is not the case the Socrates is mortal (negation)_

Limitative (infinite) It is the case that Socrates is non-mortal (limitation)

Relation

Every judgment is either

Categorical: Socrates is a man (substance/accident)

Hypothetical: If there exists perfect justice then the persistently wicked men will be punished (causality/dependence)

Disjunctive: The world exists either through blind chance or inner necessity (community/interaction)

Modality

Every judgment is either

Problematic: The world is made of green cheese (Possibility and Impossibility)

Assertoric: Iron is a magnetic (existence or non-existence)

Apodictic: 2 + 2 = 4. (contingency and necessity)

Claim: 1. Every one of these characteristics can be instantiated in three different ways eg the quantity of a judgments can be universal, particular or singular

2. Each of these headings contains a set of logical function and at least one form each set must be exercised in every judgment.

3. The third category in each class always arises from the two combinations of the of the second category with the first (CPR B110)

4. The table of judgment is complete:

That logic has already, form the earliest times, proceeded upon this sure path of [of a science] is evidenced by fact that since Aristotle it has not required to retrace a single step. It is remarkable also that to the present day this logic has not been able to advance a single step, and is thus to all appearance a closed and completed body of doctrine (Bviii)Developments of modern logic have put this in question:

Eg Existential judgements:Even if his proof of the complete list of the categories was not successful he may still claim to have established that we do apply categories in making objective empirical judgments = Transcendental Deduction. I.e., the aim is to show what categories are necessary for experience

B. The Transcendental Deduction

All things we experience must be conceptualisable in terms of the categories in particular substance and cause. The deduction the a priori concepts must be regarded as a priori conditions of the possibility of experience (A94/B126) Remember: Categories (taken by themselves) are merely functions of the understanding for concepts, and represent no object (A147). They represent an object only if they relate to intuitions; i.e. if we make synthetic judgments. The latter can be a priori or a posteriori.

Eg.:

Quantity

Category of quantity is linked with the Axioms of Intuition:

All appearances [since they are in space or time LA] are, in their intuition, extensive magnitudes (A162/B203); i.e. an extensive magnitude is one that a thing has in virtue of its parts. I.e. we can ask how long something lasts or how large it is.It expresses a part-whole relation: eg a line made up of a series of points/units). Or Number is a representation which comprises the successive addition of homogeneous units (A142/B182)Yet remember: the parts of space cannot precede the one all-embracing space, as being, as it were constituents out of which it can be composed; on the contrary, they can be thought only as in it (A25/B39)With regard to the form of intuition: the whole is greater than its parts: space is essentially one; the manifold in it [i.e. the different portions of space], and therefore the general concept of spaces, depends solely on [the introduction of] limitations (A25/B39).

Quality (A182)

In all appearances the real, which is an object of sensation, has an intensive magnitude, that is a degree (Cf Anticipation of Perception A166; B207)

Eg. Colour or sound are not composed of parts but perceived instantaneously (A167-8) and since they have a certain magnitude they can be measured. Important: Can attributes intensive magnitude not to appearances but to sensations! A degree of intensive magnitude is involved in all sensible perception (B208)

Relation: We make categorical judgments; ie synthetic judgements where the predicate is not contained in the subject.All appearances contain the permanent as the object itself and the transitory as its mere determination, that is, as a way in which the object exists; (A182)

I.e, if we refer to properties (eg hardness, warm or black they are necessarily properties of something. This something is a substance. [cf CPR Analogies of Experience] Everything that happens (or begins) presupposes something upon which it follows according to a rule (A189) principle of causalityAll substances in so far as they coexist stand in mutual interaction with each other (community) (A 211)

Modality (possible real or necessary [within the natural world]; ie possible does not mean logically possible (i.e. what we can think without contradiction) but real possibility i.e. that which agrees with the formal conditions of experience, that is, with the conditions of intuition and of concepts (A218). = [cf Postulates of Empirical Thought]

That which is bound up with the material conditions of experience (i.e. sensation) is actual/realThat which is determined in accordance to universal conditions of experience is necessary. (A218)