my paper for my modern and contemporary philosophy class
Kant’s transcendental deduction is the reasoning and explanation of categories, the “pure concepts of the understanding”, and how categories are a necessity in order to construct objects in experience. In order to have the knowledge of an object, one must have the experience of that object. Like Hume agrees, all objects of experience need to be grounded in the logic of categories. Breaking down the experience to the basis of it is to give ourselves the pure concepts of understanding. The experience of an object derives from a line of intuition, a scheme of appearances. “Now all experience does indeed contain, in addition to the intuition of the sense through which something is given, a concept of an object as being thereby given, that is to say, as appearing. (Kant 126)” When I speak of intuition, I speak solely of empirical intuition and not of pure intuition. This empirical intuition comes from the object’s appearance. What is appeared to you is what creates your intuition of that object. What one first perceives through senses is what creates your intuition.
However, with just intuition, one will still not be able to grasp the knowledge of an object. To have knowledge, you need to be able to connect these intuitions. If you don’t connect these intuitions and appearances, you will just have a flux of intuitions floating about.
“This relation of appearances to possible experience is indeed necessary, for otherwise they would yield no knowledge and would not in any way concern us. We have, therefore, to recognise that pure understanding, by means of the categories, is a formal and synthetic principle of all experiences, and that appearances have a necessary relation to the understanding. (Kant 143)”
Several different aspects need to be fulfilled in order to create these categories of the understanding through the intuitions and representations. The appearances and intuitions that one has need to be turned into a whole, an experience at one time. One needs to create and conceptualize a single experience. All representations are subject to time, because time is something that is rooted in all intuitions because it is part of the inner self. The intuitions that one perceives are held together with time and are rooted together with time, and therefore create that single experience.
Let’s take the concept of riding a bike for example. You learn to ride a bike and then you recall how to do so in the respective order of what needs to be done in order to ride the bike. You see, in order to ride that bike, you need to remember first what a bike is, and then how to get onto it, and how to pedal, how to brake, to get off, etc. However, if you do realize all the aspects of riding a bike, if you don’t do so in order, what you know and learned is useless to you. Your intuitions of riding a bike is chaotic, a flux of ideas of what to do. Unless you remember the steps of riding a bike as a whole, with all the intuitions of riding a bike in order, you will never be able to ride a bike.
Also, one needs to have the ability to recall those intuitions made of the object and to be able to imagine those intuitions. Synthesis of reproduction in imagination is the ability to be able to recall those intuitions that you formed into that single experience. If we are not able to retain the sequences of representations, then there will be no knowledge. The same object that we experienced and perceived would be, the next time we came across it, nothing but a flux of the same intuitions and representations, but instead would be new to you. However, to just recollect the intuitions and representations wouldn’t suffice. Once again, time plays an important role. Because time is an a priori, our intuitions are a part of time. For this part of the synthesis, one would have to not only remember and reproduce the representations, but be able to do so respectively with time.
This can be easily perceived through the example and analysis of brushing your teeth. One knows that with brushing your teeth, you need to first obtain a toothbrush, then put on some toothpaste, then brush your teeth, and whatnot. Even if you are capable of the previously stated where you can create these representations into a concept, if you can’t recall the steps of brushing your teeth correctly, one would not be able to brush their teeth.
Lastly, one must have a synthesis of recognition in concepts. To really be able to remember and grasp the understanding of the intuitions and the respective scheme of these representations, you need to unify these representations and form it into a concept. In order to be able to unify these concepts, you need to go through the first two parts of as well as add more aspects to it. Through concepts and categories, one is able to bring together the scheme of the intuitions and representations into one whole experience, one whole representation.
With a respective combination of intuitions, a concept forms and you are now able to categorize an object. These categories and concepts is something which allows something to be though as an object in general, and our intuitions, the appearances that we derive from it are the objects of experience. However, in order to be able to actually experience something, unity of self, unity of object, and the unity of both needs to exist. This is pertaining to the idea of a transcendental unity of apperception. Self-perception is what makes up a large part of concepts and categories. This unity of apperception is broken down to two parts. Without these two parts, unity could never occur, which would in sense, prevent one from understanding and experiencing objects. First off, an object is an object in itself. An object is different from its surroundings; the object has its own identity. The latter part of unity would be analytic unity of apperception. This is simply the concept of me, me, and me. Only when I perceive intuitions and I go through the rules of which intuition needs to go through to become a concept can I really understand and experience the object.
Take Socrates for example. He is the one that went before the court and only he was the one that sat in front of the cup of hemlock and only he was the one that drank it. I can go ahead and try to imagine, to try to go through that experience myself. However, this instance would never be something that I can fully have knowledge of nor experience because it wasn’t me that went through it, it was solely Socrates. This specific experience is Socrates’, like all other experiences that he may have gone through, is not only based on time, but is attached and connected to his other memories and experiences, his own self, what makes up his self. Therefore, I could never understand and fully experience the drinking of the hemlock and the injustice he had to experience.
This concept of a consciousness having its own personal identity and being able to tie together different sequences of experience is what makes humans a self-conscious being. The memories that Socrates may have had in this certain situation, in this sequence, this chain of intuitions and concepts, is what only Socrates, only the person that really had gone through that experience, can really experience. And the aspects of this situation that Socrates does remember and recall is resulted from his own self-identity, his own previous experiences and knowledge. Henceforth, we humans are the only ones that have the ability of apperception.
A puppy might have the ability to avoid walking into a table after experiencing the pain and results of walking into a table the first time, but a puppy doesn’t really understand why. A puppy can’t take the initial intuitions and representations of the table and the act of walking into it and connect the two. A puppy might have some sort of perception of the idea of not walking into a table, or what seems to be a table, but the puppy will never have sense of itself as a being separate from its environment. This appearance of the table from the puppy’s own perspective may only be subjective. If the puppy were able to conceive that the table is hard and solid and it will hurt if it runs into it and understand that, it would achieve the unity of self.
Atleast that is what Kant is stating with this theory. This part of the concept of transcendental deduction is the only part I really disagree with. Kant is stating that only humans are capable of having self-identity, that only humans are capable of “apperception”. I, on the other hand, believe otherwise. Going back to puppies, they have personalities, they have their own experiences. And although we may never know what it is like to be a puppy, through the unity of self per Kant and through the knowledge that we will never be a puppy, we can’t argue without proof that only humans and not puppies or any other creature is capable of apperception, nor have the ability to truly experience and understand. Other than this argument of Kant’s, I agree completely with his concepts of transcendental deduction. I agree that through the process of connecting a scheme of intuitions and concepts together can one have the ability to fully experience and derive knowledge of a representation, of an object, of anything.
However, with just intuition, one will still not be able to grasp the knowledge of an object. To have knowledge, you need to be able to connect these intuitions. If you don’t connect these intuitions and appearances, you will just have a flux of intuitions floating about.
“This relation of appearances to possible experience is indeed necessary, for otherwise they would yield no knowledge and would not in any way concern us. We have, therefore, to recognise that pure understanding, by means of the categories, is a formal and synthetic principle of all experiences, and that appearances have a necessary relation to the understanding. (Kant 143)”
Several different aspects need to be fulfilled in order to create these categories of the understanding through the intuitions and representations. The appearances and intuitions that one has need to be turned into a whole, an experience at one time. One needs to create and conceptualize a single experience. All representations are subject to time, because time is something that is rooted in all intuitions because it is part of the inner self. The intuitions that one perceives are held together with time and are rooted together with time, and therefore create that single experience.
Let’s take the concept of riding a bike for example. You learn to ride a bike and then you recall how to do so in the respective order of what needs to be done in order to ride the bike. You see, in order to ride that bike, you need to remember first what a bike is, and then how to get onto it, and how to pedal, how to brake, to get off, etc. However, if you do realize all the aspects of riding a bike, if you don’t do so in order, what you know and learned is useless to you. Your intuitions of riding a bike is chaotic, a flux of ideas of what to do. Unless you remember the steps of riding a bike as a whole, with all the intuitions of riding a bike in order, you will never be able to ride a bike.
Also, one needs to have the ability to recall those intuitions made of the object and to be able to imagine those intuitions. Synthesis of reproduction in imagination is the ability to be able to recall those intuitions that you formed into that single experience. If we are not able to retain the sequences of representations, then there will be no knowledge. The same object that we experienced and perceived would be, the next time we came across it, nothing but a flux of the same intuitions and representations, but instead would be new to you. However, to just recollect the intuitions and representations wouldn’t suffice. Once again, time plays an important role. Because time is an a priori, our intuitions are a part of time. For this part of the synthesis, one would have to not only remember and reproduce the representations, but be able to do so respectively with time.
This can be easily perceived through the example and analysis of brushing your teeth. One knows that with brushing your teeth, you need to first obtain a toothbrush, then put on some toothpaste, then brush your teeth, and whatnot. Even if you are capable of the previously stated where you can create these representations into a concept, if you can’t recall the steps of brushing your teeth correctly, one would not be able to brush their teeth.
Lastly, one must have a synthesis of recognition in concepts. To really be able to remember and grasp the understanding of the intuitions and the respective scheme of these representations, you need to unify these representations and form it into a concept. In order to be able to unify these concepts, you need to go through the first two parts of as well as add more aspects to it. Through concepts and categories, one is able to bring together the scheme of the intuitions and representations into one whole experience, one whole representation.
With a respective combination of intuitions, a concept forms and you are now able to categorize an object. These categories and concepts is something which allows something to be though as an object in general, and our intuitions, the appearances that we derive from it are the objects of experience. However, in order to be able to actually experience something, unity of self, unity of object, and the unity of both needs to exist. This is pertaining to the idea of a transcendental unity of apperception. Self-perception is what makes up a large part of concepts and categories. This unity of apperception is broken down to two parts. Without these two parts, unity could never occur, which would in sense, prevent one from understanding and experiencing objects. First off, an object is an object in itself. An object is different from its surroundings; the object has its own identity. The latter part of unity would be analytic unity of apperception. This is simply the concept of me, me, and me. Only when I perceive intuitions and I go through the rules of which intuition needs to go through to become a concept can I really understand and experience the object.
Take Socrates for example. He is the one that went before the court and only he was the one that sat in front of the cup of hemlock and only he was the one that drank it. I can go ahead and try to imagine, to try to go through that experience myself. However, this instance would never be something that I can fully have knowledge of nor experience because it wasn’t me that went through it, it was solely Socrates. This specific experience is Socrates’, like all other experiences that he may have gone through, is not only based on time, but is attached and connected to his other memories and experiences, his own self, what makes up his self. Therefore, I could never understand and fully experience the drinking of the hemlock and the injustice he had to experience.
This concept of a consciousness having its own personal identity and being able to tie together different sequences of experience is what makes humans a self-conscious being. The memories that Socrates may have had in this certain situation, in this sequence, this chain of intuitions and concepts, is what only Socrates, only the person that really had gone through that experience, can really experience. And the aspects of this situation that Socrates does remember and recall is resulted from his own self-identity, his own previous experiences and knowledge. Henceforth, we humans are the only ones that have the ability of apperception.
A puppy might have the ability to avoid walking into a table after experiencing the pain and results of walking into a table the first time, but a puppy doesn’t really understand why. A puppy can’t take the initial intuitions and representations of the table and the act of walking into it and connect the two. A puppy might have some sort of perception of the idea of not walking into a table, or what seems to be a table, but the puppy will never have sense of itself as a being separate from its environment. This appearance of the table from the puppy’s own perspective may only be subjective. If the puppy were able to conceive that the table is hard and solid and it will hurt if it runs into it and understand that, it would achieve the unity of self.
Atleast that is what Kant is stating with this theory. This part of the concept of transcendental deduction is the only part I really disagree with. Kant is stating that only humans are capable of having self-identity, that only humans are capable of “apperception”. I, on the other hand, believe otherwise. Going back to puppies, they have personalities, they have their own experiences. And although we may never know what it is like to be a puppy, through the unity of self per Kant and through the knowledge that we will never be a puppy, we can’t argue without proof that only humans and not puppies or any other creature is capable of apperception, nor have the ability to truly experience and understand. Other than this argument of Kant’s, I agree completely with his concepts of transcendental deduction. I agree that through the process of connecting a scheme of intuitions and concepts together can one have the ability to fully experience and derive knowledge of a representation, of an object, of anything.