Remember—Sunday morning at 9 Central tune in to Atheist Talk radio. This week, August Berkshire has two fundamentalist evangelical Christians on the show, Jeff and Lee from the Twin Cities Christian talk radio station, KKMS. I’ve dealt with these guys before, so my lip will be curled the entire hour. August will deal with them politely, you can be sure.
Hank Fox also tells me that Sunday is National Friendship Day. So what say you all try to get out and meet some new atheist friends? Look up your local godless group and see if they’ve got any fun events going on, and get to know someone new and intelligent and interesting? Last week I got to know Makita — there are all kinds of fascinating people out there, so talk to some!
National Friendship Day, not National “Meet-up-with-fellow-atheists Day”.
Or are you saying that you can only be friends with atheists?
Just sayin’. . .
Wow. Really? Is your hobby being obtuse?
Oooh! Photographic proof that Makita’s outside is as lovely as her mind is sharp.
This is off topic, but reports are coming in of an attack on researchers’ homes in Santa Cruz, CA. Apparently injuries were sustained by the residents. These attacks come in the wake of threatening pamphlets left at local coffeehouses.
It’s not really anti-science. Anti Animal research. But still, it’s not acceptable in any way.
No offense, but everytime I see a picture of you I have to laugh that so many people seem so afraid of and offended by you.
I was very pleased to discover my cousin by marriage, who I love to talk politics with, is an atheist. We both come from similar Catholic back grounds. In fact I am discovering that a surprising number of my acquaintances have revealed they too are atheists. This after I came out, so to speak. Does this mean I have good taste in friends or I naturally gravitate towards like minded people, people who use reason to figure things out or who dont put limits on expanding their minds?
I kinda like that t-shirt, though for me yellow seems to attract more insect attention than human female attention.
I sat next to Makita and PZ’s lovely wife during much of the breakfast and had a wonderful time. I really enjoyed these people and our conversation.
What an excellent way to spend two hours on a Sunday morning.
Much, much better than being in church.
If you get a chance, tell Makita her reciprocating saws and sanders, not to mention her hammer-drills, are considered among the best. And she’s pretty cute her own self.
Yellow? Was that your only choice?
Pfft. I tried to make contact with my local atheists on some mailing lists, and got flamed to a cinder. I made the mistake of having ideas and asking questions – you know, seeking discussion and input from other people who don’t believe in anything supernatural, metaphysical etcetera. Which, to my exasperation, apparently means that I’m an apologist or a theist. It seems that some atheist groups have as much investment in their own dogma as many religions do.
Damn you PZ you get to me meet all the hot rational chicks, nevermind i’m wasted ..
I’m with Matt. Someone needs to spin the color wheel again.
I met Roy Zimmerman tonight, does that count? :)
Also several other really cool people who were all at a house party he was performing at, who were kind enough to let me crash in on the event. It was fabulous.
This was fun to read…
Charlie Brooker at the UK Guardian
“…Darwin’s theory of evolution was simple, beautiful, majestic and awe-inspiring. But because it contradicts the allegorical babblings of a bunch of made-up old books, it’s been under attack since day one. That’s just tough luck for Darwin. If the Bible had contained a passage that claimed gravity is caused by God pulling objects toward the ground with magic invisible threads, we’d still be debating Newton with idiots too.”
Who’s the pretty lady standing next to the pompous, self-worshipping, obnoxious, goofy looking loser?
I’m guessing it’s “Layla”.
DEDUCTION OF THE PURE CONCEPTS OF THE
UNDERSTANDING
Section 2
TRANSCENDENTAL DEDUCTION OF THE PURE CONCEPTS
OF THE UNDERSTANDING
$15
The Possibility of Combination in General
THE manifold of representations can be given in an intuition
which is purely sensible, that is, nothing but receptivity; and
the form of this intuition can lie a priori in our faculty of
representation, without being anything more than the mode in
which the subject is affected. But the combination (conjunctio)
of a manifold in general can never come to us through the
senses, and cannot, therefore, be already contained in the pure
form of sensible intuition. For it is an act of spontaneity of the B130
faculty of representation; and since this faculty, to distinguish
it from sensibility, must be entitled understanding, all
combination — be we conscious of it or not, be it a combination of
the manifold of intuition, empirical or non-empirical, or of
various concepts — is an act of the understanding. To this act
the general title ‘synthesis’ may be assigned, as indicating
that we cannot represent to ourselves anything as combined in
the object which we have not ourselves previously combined,
and that of all representations combination is the only one which
P 152
cannot be given through objects. Being an act of the self-
activity of the subject, it cannot be executed save by the subject
itself. It will easily be observed that this action is originally
one and is equipollent for all combination, and that is
dissolution, namely, analysis, which appears to be its opposite,
yet always presupposes it. For where the understanding has
not previously combined, it cannot dissolve, since only as
having been combined by the understanding can anything that
allows of analysis be given to the faculty of representation.
But the concept of combination includes, besides the concept
of the manifold and of its synthesis, also the concept of
the unity of the manifold. Combination is representation of the
synthetic unity of the manifold. The representation of this B131
unity cannot, therefore, arise out of the combination. On the
contrary, it is what, by adding itself to the representation of
the manifold, first makes possible the concept of the combination.
This unity, which precedes a priori all concepts of combination,
is not the category of unity ($10); for all categories
are grounded in logical functions of judgment, and in these
functions combination, and therefore unity of given concepts,
is already thought. Thus the category already presupposes
combination. We must therefore look yet higher for this unity
(as qualitative, $12), namely in that which itself contains the
ground of the unity of diverse concepts in judgment, and therefore
of the possibility of the understanding, even as regards
its logical employment.
$16
The Original Synthetic Unity of Apperception
It must be possible for the ‘I think’ to accompany all my
representations; for otherwise something would be represented
P 153
in me which could not be thought at all, and that is equivalent B132
to saying that the representation would be impossible, or at
least would be nothing to me.
P 152
Whether the representations are in themselves identical, and
whether, therefore, one can be analytically thought through the
other, is not a question that here arises. The consciousness of the one,
when the manifold is under consideration, has always to be
distinguished from the consciousness of the other; and it is with the
synthesis of this (possible) consciousness that we are here alone
concerned.
P 153
That representation which can
be given prior to all thought is entitled intuition. All the
manifold of intuition has, therefore, a necessary relation to the
‘I think’ in the same subject in which this manifold is found.
But this representation is an act of spontaneity, that is, it
cannot be regarded as belonging to sensibility. I call it pure
apperception, to distinguish it from empirical apperception, or,
again, origninal apperception, because it is that self-consiousness
which, while generating the representation ‘I think’ (a
representation which must be capable of accompanying all
other representations, and which in all consciousness is one and
the same), cannot itself be accompanied by any further
representation. The unity of this apperception I likewise entitle the
transcendental unity of self-consciousness, in order to indicate
the possibility of a priori knowledge arising from it. For the
manifold representations, which are given in an intuition,
would not be one and all my representations, if they did
not all belong to one self-consciousness. As my representations
(even if I am not conscious of them as such) they
must conform to the condition under which alone they can
stand together in one universal self-consciousness, because
otherwise they would not all without exception belong to B133
me. From this original combination many consequences
follow.
This thoroughgoing identity of the apperception of a
manifold which is given in intuition contains a synthesis of
representations, and is possible only through the consciousness
of this synthesis. For the empirical consciousness, which
accompanies different representations, is in itself diverse and
without relation to the identity of the subject. That relation
comes about, not simply through my accompanying each
representation with consciousness, but only in so far as I conjoin
one representation with another, and am conscious of the
synthesis of them. Only in so far, therefore, as I can unite a
manifold of given representations in one consciousness, is it
possible for me to represent to myself the identity of the
consciousness in [i.e. throughout] these representations. In other
P 154
words, the analytic unity of apperception is possible only under
the presupposition of a certain synthetic unity.
The thought that the representations given in intuition one B134
and all belong to me, is therefore equivalent to the thought
that I unite them in one self-consciousness, or can at least
so unite them; and although this thought is not itself the
consciousness of the synthesis of the representations, it
presupposes the possibility of that synthesis. In other words, only
in so far as I can grasp the manifold of the representations in
one consciousness, do I call them one and all mine. For
otherwise I should have as many-coloured and diverse a self as I
have representations of which I am conscious to myself.
Synthetic unity of the manifold of intuitions, as generated a –
priori, is thus the ground of the identity of apperception itself,
which precedes a priori all my determinate thought. Combination
does not, however, lie in the objects, and cannot be
borrowed from them, and so, through perception, first taken up
into the understanding. On the contrary, it is an affair of the
understanding alone, which itself is nothing but the faculty B135
of combining a priori, and of bringing the manifold of given
representations under the unity of apperception. The principle
of apperception is the highest principle in the whole sphere of
human knowledge.
This principle of the necessary unity of apperception is
++ The analytic unity of consciousness belongs to all general concepts,
as such. If, for instance, I think red in general, I thereby represent
to myself a property which (as a characteristic) can be found in
something, or can he combined with other representations; that is,
only by means of a presupposed possible synthetic unity can I represent
to myself the analytic unity. A representation which is to be
thought as common to different representations is regarded as belonging
to such as have, in addition to it, also something different. B134
Consequently it must previously be thought in synthetic unity with
other (though, it may be, only possible) representations, before I can
think in it the analytic unity of consciousness, which makes it a
conceptus communis. The synthetic unity of apperception is therefore
that highest point, to which we must ascribe all employment of the
understanding, even the whole of logic, and conformably therewith,
transcendental philosophy. Indeed this faculty of apperception is the
understanding itself.
P 155
itself, indeed, an identical, and therefore analytic, proposition;
nevertheless it reveals the necessity of a synthesis of the
manifold given in intuition, without which the thoroughgoing
identity of self-consciousness cannot be thought. For through
the ‘I’, as simple representation, nothing manifold is given;
only in intuition, which is distinct from the ‘I’, can a manifold
be given; and only through combination in one consciousness
can it be thought. An understanding in which through
self-consciousness all the manifold would eo ipso be given,
would be intuitive; our understanding can only think, and
for intuition must look to the senses. I am conscious of the
self as identical in respect of the manifold of representations
that are given to me in an intuition, because I call them one
and all my representations, and so apprehend them as
constituting one intuition. This amounts to saying, that I am
conscious to myself a priori of a necessary synthesis of
representations — to be entitled the original synthetic unity of
apperception — under which all representations that are given
to me must stand, but under which they have also first to
be brought by means of a synthesis. B136
$17
The Principle of the Synthetic Unity is the Supreme
Principle of all Employment of the Understanding
The supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in
its relation to sensibility is, according to the Transcendental
Aesthetic, that all the manifold of intuition should be subject
to the formal conditions of space and time. The supreme principle
of the same possibility, in its relation to understanding,
is that all the manifold of intuition should be subject to
conditions of the original synthetic unity of apperception.
Space and time, and all their parts, are intuitions, and are,
therefore, with the manifold which they contain, singular representations
(vide the Transcendental Aesthetic). Consequently they are not
mere concepts through which one and the same consciousness is
found to be contained in a number of representations. On the
contrary, through them many representations are found to be contained
in one representation, and in the consciousness of that representation
; and they are thus composite. The unity of that consciousness
P 156n
is therefore synthetic and yet is also original. The singularity of such
intuitions is found to have important consequences (vide $25).
P 155
In so
P 156
far as the manifold representations of intuition are given to us,
they are subject to the former of these two principles; in so far
as they must allow of being combined in one consciousness,
they are subject to the latter. For without such combination B137
nothing can be thought or known, since the given
representations would not have in common the act of the
apperception ‘I think’, and so could not be apprehended together in
knowledge. This knowledge consists in the determinate relation
of given representations to an object; and an object is
that in the concept of which the manifold of a given intuition
is united. Now all unification of representations demands
unity of consciousness in the synthesis of them. Consequently
it is the unity of consciousness that alone constitutes the
relation of representations to an object, and therefore their
objective validity and the fact that they are modes of knowledge;
and upon it therefore rests the very possibility of the
understanding.
The first pure knowledge of understanding, then, upon
which all the rest of its employment is based, and which also
at the same time is completely independent of all conditions
of sensible intuition, is the principle of the original synthetic
unity of apperception. Thus the mere form of outer sensible
intuition, space, is not yet [by itself] knowledge; it supplies
only the manifold of a priori intuition for a possible
knowledge. To know anything in space (for instance, a line), I
must draw it, and thus synthetically bring into being a B138
determinate combination of the given manifold, so that the unity
of this act is at the same time the unity of consciousness (as
in the concept of a line); and it is through this unity of
consciousness that an object (a determinate space) is first known.
The synthetic unity of consciousness is, therefore, an objective
condition of all knowledge. It is not merely a condition that
I myself require in knowing an object, but is a condition
under which every intuition must stand in order to become
an object for me. For otherwise, in the absence of this
P 157
synthesis, the manifold would not be united in one
consciousness.
Although this proposition makes synthetic unity a condition
of all thought, it is, as already stated, itself analytic.
For it says no more than that all my representations in any
given intuition must be subject to that condition under which
alone I can ascribe them to the identical self as my
representations, and so can comprehend them as synthetically
combined in one apperception through the general expression,
‘I think’.
This principle is not, however, to be taken as applying
to every possible understanding, but only to that understanding
through whose pure apperception, in the representation
‘I am’, nothing manifold is given. An understanding which
through its self-consciousness could supply to itself the manifold
of intuition — an understanding, that is to say, through B139
whose representation the objects of the representation should
at the same time exist — would not require, for the unity of
consciousness, a special act of synthesis of the manifold. For
the human understanding, however, which thinks only, and
does not intuit, that act is necessary. It is indeed the first
principle of the human understanding, and is so indispensable
to it that we cannot form the least conception of any other
possible understanding, either of such as is itself intuitive or
of any that may possess an underlying mode of sensible intuition
which is different in kind from that in space and time.
$18
The Objective Unity of Self-Consciousness
The transcendental unity of apperception is that unity
through which all the manifold given in an intuition is united
in a concept of the object. It is therefore entitled objective,
and must be distinguished from the subjective unity of
consciousness, which is a determination of inner sense — through
which the manifold of intuition for such [objective] combination
is empirically given. Whether I can become empirically
conscious of the manifold as simultaneous or as successive
depends on circumstances or empirical conditions. Therefore
P 158
the empirical unity of consciousness, through association of B140
representations, itself concerns an appearance, and is wholly
contingent. But the pure form of intuition in time, merely
as intuition in general, which contains a given manifold, is
subject to the original unity of consciousness, simply through
the necessary relation of the manifold of the intuition to
the one ‘I think’, and so through the pure synthesis of
understanding which is the a priori underlying ground of
the empirical synthesis. Only the original unity is objectively
valid; the empirical unity of apperception, upon which we
are not here dwelling, and which besides is merely derived
from the former under given conditions in concreto, has only
subjective validity. To one man, for instance, a certain word
suggests one thing, to another some other thing; the unity
of consciousness in that which is empirical is not, as regards
what is given, necessarily and universally valid.
$19
The Logical Form of all Judgments consists in the Objective
Unity of the Apperception of the Concepts which they
contain
I have never been able to accept the interpretation which
logicians give of judgment in general. It is, they declare,
the representation of a relation between two concepts. I do
not here dispute with them as to what is defective in this B141
interpretation — that in any case it applies only to categorical,
not to hypothetical and disjunctive judgments (the two latter
containing a relation not of concepts but of judgments), an
oversight from which many troublesome consequences have
followed. I need only point out that the definition does not
determine in what the asserted relation consists.
The lengthy doctrine of the four syllogistic figures concerns
categorical syllogisms only; and although it is indeed nothing more
than an artificial method of securing, through the surreptitious
introduction of immediate inferences (consequentiae immediatae)
among the premisses of a pure syllogism, the appearance that there
are more kinds of inference than that of the first figure, this would
hardly have met with such remarkable acceptance, had not its
authors succeeded in bringing categorical judgments into such
P 159n
exclusive respect, as being those to which all others must allow of
being reduced — teaching which, as indicated in $9, is none the less
erroneous.
P 159
But if I investigate more precisely the relation of the given
modes of knowledge in any judgment, and distinguish it,
as belonging to the understanding, from the relation
according to laws of the reproductive imagination, which has
only subjective validity, I find that a judgment is nothing
but the manner in which given modes of knowledge are
brought to the objective unity of apperception. This is what
is intended by the copula ‘is’. It is employed to distinguish B142
the objective unity of given representations from the subjective.
It indicates their relation to original apperception,
and its necessary unity. It holds good even if the judgment
is itself empirical, and therefore contingent, as, for example,
in the judgment, ‘Bodies are heavy’. I do not here assert that
these representations necessarily belong to one another in the
empirical intuition, but that they belong to one another in
virtue of the necessary unity of apperception in the synthesis
of intuitions, that is, according to principles of the objective
determination of all representations, in so far as knowledge
can be acquired by means of these representations —
principles which are all derived from the fundamental principle
of the transcendental unity of apperception. Only in this
way does there arise from this relation a judgment, that is, a
relation which is objectively valid, and so can be adequately
distinguished from a relation of the same representations
that would have only subjective validity — as when they are
connected according to laws of association. In the latter case,
all that I could say would be, ‘If I support a body, I feel an
impression of weight’; I could not say, ‘It, the body, is heavy’.
Thus to say ‘The body is heavy’ is not merely to state that
the two representations have always been conjoined in my
perception, however often that perception be repeated; what
we are asserting is that they are combined in the object, no
matter what the state of the subject may be.
P 160
$20 B143
All Sensible Intuitions are subject to the Categories, as
Conditions under which alone their Manifold can come
together in one Consciousness
The manifold given in a sensible intuition is necessarily
subject to the original synthetic unity of apperception, because
in no other way is the unity of intuition possible ($17).
But that act of understanding by which the manifold of given
representations (be they intuitions or concepts) is brought
under one apperception, is the logical function of judgment
(cf. $19). All the manifold, therefore, so far as it is given in a
single empirical intuition, is determined in respect of one of
the logical functions of judgment, and is thereby brought into
one consciousness. Now the categories are just these functions
of judgment, in so far as they are employed in determination
of the manifold of a given intuition (cf. $13). Consequently,
the manifold in a given intuition is necessarily subject to the
categories.
$21 B144
Observation
A manifold, contained in an intuition which I call mine, is
represented, by means of the synthesis of the understanding, as
belonging to the necessary unity of self-consciousness; and this
is effected by means of the category. This [requirement of a]
category therefore shows that the empirical consciousness of a
given manifold in a single intuition is subject to a pure self-
consciousness a priori, just as is empirical intuition to a pure
sensible intuition, which likewise takes place a priori. Thus in
the above proposition a beginning is made of a deduction of
the pure concepts of understanding;
The proof of this rests on the represented unity of intuition, by
which an object is given. This unity of intuition always includes in
itself a synthesis of the manifold given for an intuition, and so
already contains the relation of this manifold to the unity of
apperception.
P 160
and in this deduction,
since the categories have their source in the understanding
alone, independently of sensibility, I must abstract from the
P 161
mode in which the manifold for an empirical intuition is given,
and must direct attention solely to the unity which, in terms of
the category, and by means of the understanding, enters into
the intuition. In what follows (cf. $26) it will be shown, from
the mode in which the empirical intuition is given in sensibility,
that its unity is no other than that which the category B145
(according to $20) prescribes to the manifold of a given
intuition in general. Only thus, by demonstration of the a priori
validity of the categories in respect of all objects of our senses,
will the purpose of the deduction be fully attained.
But in the above proof there is one feature from which I
could not abstract, the feature, namely, that the manifold to be
intuited must be given prior to the synthesis of understanding,
and independently of it. How this takes place, remains here
undetermined. For were I to think an understanding which is
itself intuitive (as, for example, a divine understanding which
should not represent to itself given objects, but through whose
representation the objects should themselves be given or
produced), the categories would have no meaning whatsoever in
respect of such a mode of knowledge. They are merely rules for
an understanding whose whole power consists in thought, consists,
that is, in the act whereby it brings the synthesis of a manifold,
given to it from elsewhere in intuition, to the unity of
apperception — a faculty, therefore, which by itself knows nothing
whatsoever, but merely combines and arranges the material of
knowledge, that is, the intuition, which must be given to it by
the object. This peculiarity of our understanding, that it can
produce a priori unity of apperception solely by means of the
categories, and only by such and so many, is as little capable B146
of further explanation as why we have just these and no other
functions of judgment, or why space and time are the only
forms of our possible intuition.
$22
The Category has no other Application in Knowledge
than to Objects of Experience
To think an object and to know an object are thus by no
means the same thing. Knowledge involves two factors: first,
P 162
the concept, through which an object in general is thought (the
category); and secondly, the intuition, through which it is
given. For if no intuition could be given corresponding to the
concept, the concept would still indeed be a thought, so far as
its form is concerned, but would be without any object, and no
knowledge of anything would be possible by means of it. So
far as I could know, there would be nothing, and could be
nothing, to which my thought could be applied. Now, as the
Aesthetic has shown, the only intuition possible to us is
sensible; consequently, the thought of an object in general, by
means of a pure concept of understanding, can become knowledge
for us only in so far as the concept is related to objects
of the senses. Sensible intuition is either pure intuition (space B147
and time) or empirical intuition of that which is immediately
represented, through sensation, as actual in space and time.
Through the determination of pure intuition we can acquire
a priori knowledge of objects, as in mathematics, but only
in regard to their form, as appearances; whether there can be
things which must be intuited in this form, is still left
undecided. Mathematical concepts are not, therefore, by themselves
knowledge, except on the supposition that there are things
which allow of being presented to us only in accordance with
the form of that pure sensible intuition. Now things in space
and time are given only in so far as they are perceptions
(that is, representations accompanied by sensation) — therefore
only through empirical representation. Consequently, the pure
concepts of understanding, even when they are applied to a –
priori intuitions, as in mathematics, yield knowledge only in
so far as these intuitions — and therefore indirectly by their
means the pure concepts also — can be applied to empirical
intuitions. Even, therefore, with the aid of [pure] intuition, the
categories do not afford us any knowledge of things; they do
so only through their possible application to empirical intuition.
In other words, they serve only for the possibility of
empirical knowledge; and such knowledge is what we entitle
experience. Our conclusion is therefore this: the categories,
as yielding knowledge of things, have no kind of application,
save only in regard to things which may be objects of possible B148
experience.
P 163
$23
The above proposition is of the greatest importance; for it
determines the limits of the employment of the pure concepts
of understanding in regard to objects, just as the Transcendental
Aesthetic determined the limits of the employment of
the pure form of our sensible intuition. Space and time, as
conditions under which alone objects can possibly be given to us,
are valid no further than for objects of the senses, and
therefore only for experience. Beyond these limits they represent
nothing; for they are only in the senses, and beyond them have
no reality. The pure concepts of understanding are free from
this limitation, and extend to objects of intuition in general,
be the intuition like or unlike ours, if only it be sensible and
not intellectual. But this extension of concepts beyond our
sensible intuition is of no advantage to us. For as concepts of
objects they are then empty, and do not even enable us to
judge of their objects whether or not they are possible. They
are mere forms of thought, without objective reality, since
we have no intuition at hand to which the synthetic unity
of apperception, which constitutes the whole content of these
forms, could be applied, and in being so applied determine
an object. Only our sensible and empirical intuition can give B149
to them body and meaning.
If we suppose an object of a non-sensible intuition to be
given, we can indeed represent it through all the predicates
which are implied in the presupposition that it has none of the
characteristics proper to sensible intuition; that it is not
extended or in space, that its duration is not a time, that no
change (succession of determinations in time) is to be met with
in it, etc. But there is no proper knowledge if I thus merely
indicate what the intuition of an object is not, without being able
to say what it is that is contained in the intuition. For I have
not then shown that the object which I am thinking through
my pure concept is even so much as possible, not being in a
position to give any intuition corresponding to the concept,
and being able only to say that our intuition is not applicable to
it. But what has chiefly to be noted is this, that to such a
something [in general] not a single one of all the categories could
P 164
be applied. We could not, for instance, apply to it the concept
of substance, meaning something which can exist as subject
and never as mere predicate. For save in so far as empirical
intuition provides the instance to which to apply it, I do not
know whether there can be anything that corresponds to such
a form of thought. But of this more hereafter.
$24 B150
The Application of the Categories to Objects of the Senses
in General
The pure concepts of understanding relate, through the
mere understanding, to objects of intuition in general, whether
that intuition be our own or any other, provided only it be
sensible. The concepts are, however, for this very reason, mere
forms of thought, through which alone no determinate object is
known. The synthesis or combination of the manifold in them
relates only to the unity of apperception, and is thereby the
ground of the possibility of a priori knowledge, so far as such
knowledge rests on the understanding. This synthesis, therefore,
is at once transcendental and also purely intellectual. But
since there lies in us a certain form of a priori sensible
intuition, which depends on the receptivity of the faculty of
representation (sensibility), the understanding, as spontaneity, is able
to determine inner sense through the manifold of given
representations, in accordance with the synthetic unity of
apperception, and so to think synthetic unity of the apperception
of the manifold of a priori sensible intuition — that being the
condition under which all objects of our human intuition must
necessarily stand. In this way the categories, in themselves
mere forms of thought, obtain objective reality, that is,
application to objects which can be given us in intuition. These B151
objects, however, are only appearances, for it is solely of
appearances that we can have a priori intuition.
This synthesis of the manifold of sensible intuition, which
is possible and necessary a priori, may be entitled figurative
synthesis (synthesis speciosa), to distinguish it from the
synthesis which is thought in the mere category in respect of the
manifold of an intuition in general, and which is entitled
combination through the understanding (synthesis intellectua-
P 165
lis). Both are transcendental, not merely as taking place
a priori, but also as conditioning the possibility of other
a priori knowledge.
But the figurative synthesis, if it be directed merely
to the original synthetic unity of apperception, that is, to
the transcendental unity which is thought in the categories,
must, in order to be distinguished from the merely intellectual
combination, be called the transcendental synthesis of
imagination. Imagination is the faculty of representing in
intuition an object that is not itself present. Now since all our
intuition is sensible, the imagination, owing to the subjective
condition under which alone it can give to the concepts of
understanding a corresponding intuition, belongs to
sensibility. But inasmuch as its synthesis is an expression of
spontaneity, which is determinative and not, like sense,
determinable merely, and which is therefore able to determine B152
sense a priori in respect of its form in accordance with the
unity of apperception, imagination is to that extent a faculty
which determines the sensibility a priori; and its synthesis of
intuitions, conforming as it does to the categories, must be
the transcendental synthesis of imagination. This synthesis is
an action of the understanding on the sensibility; and is
its first application — and thereby the ground of all its other
applications — to the objects of our possible intuition. As
figurative, it is distinguished from the intellectual synthesis,
which is carried out by the understanding alone, without the
aid of the imagination. In so far as imagination is spontaneity,
I sometimes also entitle it the productive imagination, to
distinguish it from the reproductive imagination, whose synthesis
is entirely subject to empirical laws, the laws, namely, of
association, and which therefore contributes nothing to the
explanation of the possibility of a priori knowledge. The
reproductive synthesis falls within the domain, not of transcendental
philosophy, but of psychology.
* * *
This is a suitable place for explaining the paradox which
must have been obvious to everyone in our exposition of the
P 166
form of inner sense ($6): namely, that this sense represents
to consciousness even our own selves only as we appear to B153
ourselves, not as we are in ourselves. For we intuit ourselves
only as we are inwardly affected, and this would seem to be
contradictory, since we should then have to be in a passive
relation [of active affection] to ourselves. It is to avoid this
contradiction that in systems of psychology inner sense,
which we have carefully distinguished from the faculty
of apperception, is commonly regarded as being identical
with it.
What determines inner sense is the understanding and its
original power of combining the manifold of intuition, that is,
of bringing it under an apperception, upon which the
possibility of understanding itself rest. Now the understanding
in us men is not a faculty of intuitions, and cannot,
even if intuitions be given in sensibility, take them up into
itself in such manner as to combine them as the manifold of
its own intuition. Its synthesis, therefore, if the synthesis be
viewed by itself alone, is nothing but the unity of the act,
of which, as an act, it is conscious to itself, even without
[the aid of] sensibility, but through which it is yet able to
determine the sensibility. The understanding, that is to say,
in respect of the manifold which may be given to it in accordance
with the form of sensible intuition, is able to determine
sensibility inwardly. Thus the understanding, under
the title of a transcendental synthesis of imagination, performs
this act upon the passive subject, whose faculty it is, and we
are therefore justified in saying that inner sense is affected B154
thereby. Apperception and its synthetic unity is, indeed, very
far from being identical with inner sense. The former, as the
source of all combination, applies to the manifold of intuitions
in general, and in the guise of the categories, prior
to all sensible intuition, to objects in general. Inner sense,
on the other hand, contains the mere form of intuition, but
without combination of the manifold in it, and therefore so
far contains no determinate intuition, which is possible only
through the consciousness of the determination of the manifold
by the transcendental act of imagination (synthetic influence
P 167
of the understanding upon inner sense), which I have entitled
figurative synthesis.
This we can always perceive in ourselves. We cannot think
a line without drawing it in thought, or a circle without
describing it. We cannot represent the three dimensions of
space save by setting three lines at right angles to one another
from the same point. Even time itself we cannot represent,
save in so far as we attend, in the drawing of a straight line
(which has to serve as the outer figurative representation of
time), merely to the act of the synthesis of the manifold
whereby we successively determine inner sense, and in so doing
attend to the succession of this determination in inner sense.
Motion, as an act of the subject (not as a determination of
an object), and therefore the synthesis of the manifold in B155
space, first produces the concept of succession — if we abstract
from this manifold and attend solely to the act through which
we determine the inner sense according to its form. The
understanding does not, therefore, find in inner sense such
a combination of the manifold, but produces it, in that it
affects that sense.
How the ‘I’ that thinks can be distinct from the ‘I’ that
intuits itself (for I can represent still other modes of intuition
as at least possible), and yet, as being the same subject, can be
identical with the latter; and how, therefore, I can say: “I, as
intelligence and thinking subject, know myself as an object
that is thought, in so far as I am given to myself [as something
other or] beyond that [I] which is [given to myself] in
intuition, and yet know myself, like other phenomena, only
as I appear to myself, not as I am to the understanding” —
these are questions that raise no greater nor less difficulty
than how I can be an object to myself at all, and, more
particularly, an object of intuition and of inner perceptions. B156
Motion of an object in space does not belong to a pure science,
and consequently not to geometry. For the fact that something is
movable cannot be known a priori, but only through experience.
Motion, however, considered as the describing of a space, is a pure
act of the successive synthesis of the manifold in outer intuition in
general by means of the productive imagination, and belongs not
only to geometry, but even to transcendental philosophy.
P 168
Indeed, that this is how it must be, is easily shown — if we
admit that space is merely a pure form of the appearances of
outer sense — by the fact that we cannot obtain for ourselves
a representation of time, which is not an object of outer
intuition, except under the image of a line, which we draw, and
that by this mode of depicting it alone could we know the
singleness of its dimension; and similarly by the fact that
for all inner perceptions we must derive the determination of
lengths of time or of points of time from the changes which
are exhibited to us in outer things, and that the determinations
of inner sense have therefore to be arranged as appearances
in time in precisely the same manner in which we
arrange those of outer sense in space. If, then, as regards the
latter, we admit that we know objects only in so far as we
are externally affected, we must also recognise, as regards
inner sense, that by means of it we intuit ourselves only as
we are inwardly affected by ourselves; in other words, that,
so far as inner intuition is concerned, we know our own
subject only as appearance, not as it is in itself.
$25 B157
On the other hand, in the transcendental synthesis of the
manifold of representations in general, and therefore in the
synthetic original unity of apperception, I am conscious of
myself, not as I appear to myself, nor as I am in myself, but
only that I am. This representation is a thought, not an
intuition. Now in order to know ourselves, there is required in
addition to the act of thought, which brings the manifold
of every possible intuition to the unity of apperception, a
determinate mode of intuition, whereby this manifold is given;
++ I do not see why so much difficulty should be found in admitting
that our inner sense is affected by ourselves. Such affection finds
exemplification in each and every act of attention. In every act of B157
attention the understanding determines inner sense, in accordance
with the combination which it thinks, to that inner intuition which
corresponds to the manifold in the synthesis of the understanding.
How much the mind is usually thereby affected, everyone will be
able to perceive in himself.
P 168
it therefore follows that although my existence is not indeed
P 169
appearance (still less mere illusion), the determination of my
existence can take place only in conformity with the form of B158
inner sense, according to the special mode in which the manifold,
which I combine, is given in inner intuition. Accordingly
I have no knowledge of myself as I am but merely as I appear
to myself. The consciousness of self is thus very far from being
a knowledge of the self, notwithstanding all the categories
which [are being employed to] constitute the thought of an
object in general, through combination of the manifold in one
apperception. Just as for knowledge of an object distinct from
me I require, besides the thought of an object in general
(in the category), an intuition by which I determine that
general concept, so for knowledge of myself I require, besides
the consciousness, that is, besides the thought of myself, an
intuition of the manifold in me, by which I determine this
thought. I exist as an intelligence which is conscious solely
of its power of combination; but in respect of the manifold B159
which it has to combine I am subjected to a limiting condition
(entitled inner sense), namely, that this combination can be
made intuitable only according to relations of time, which
lie entirely outside the concepts of understanding, strictly
regarded. Such an intelligence, therefore, can know itself only
as it appears to itself in respect of an intuition which is not
intellectual and cannot be given by the understanding itself,
not as it would know itself if its intuition were intellectual.
++ The ‘I think’ expresses the act of determining my existence.
Existence is already given thereby, but the mode in which I am to
determine this existence, that is, the manifold belonging to it, is not
thereby given. In order that it be given, self-intuition is required;
and such intuition is conditioned by a given a priori form, namely,
time, which is sensible and belongs to the receptivity of the
determinable [in me]. Now since I do not have another self-intuition B158
which gives the determining in me (I am conscious only of the
spontaneity of it) prior to the act of determination, as time does
in the case of the determinable, I cannot determine my existence
as that of a self-active being; all that I can do is to represent to
myself the spontaneity of my thought, that is, of the determination;
and my existence is still only determinable sensibly, that is, as the
existence of an appearance. But it is owing to this spontaneity that
I entitle myself an intelligence.
P 170
$26
Transcendental Deduction of the Universally Possible
Employment in experience of the Pure Concepts of the
Understanding
In the metaphysical deduction the a priori origin of the
categories has been proved through their complete agreement
with the general logical functions of thought; in the transcendental
deduction we have shown their possibility as a priori
modes of knowledge of objects of an intuition in general
(cf. $$20, 21). We have now to explain the possibility of
knowing a priori, by means of categories, whatever objects
may present themselves to our senses, not indeed in respect
of the form of their intuition, but in respect of the laws of
their combination, and so, as it were, of prescribing laws to
nature, and even of making nature possible. For unless the B160
categories discharged this function, there could be no explaining
why everything that can be presented to our senses must be
subject to laws which have their origin a priori in the
understanding alone.
First of all, I may draw attention to the fact that by
synthesis of apprehension I understand that combination of the
manifold in an empirical intuition, whereby perception, that
is, empirical consciousness of the intuition (as appearance),
is possible.
In the representations of space and time we have a priori
forms of outer and inner sensible intuition; and to these the
synthesis of apprehension of the manifold of appearance must
always conform, because in no other way can the synthesis
take place at all. But space and time are represented a priori
not merely as forms of sensible intuition, but as themselves
intuitions which contain a manifold [of their own], and
therefore are represented with the determination of the unity
of this manifold (vide the Transcendental Aesthetic). Thus
P 171
unity of the synthesis of the manifold, without or within us, B161
and consequently also a combination to which everything that
is to be represented as determined in space or in time must
conform, is given a priori as the condition of the synthesis
of all apprehension — not indeed in, but with these intuitions.
This synthetic unity can be no other than the unity of the
combination of the manifold of a given intuition in general
in an original consciousness, in accordance with the categories,
in so far as the combination is applied to our sensible
intuition. All synthesis, therefore, even that which renders
perception possible, is subject to the categories; and since
experience is knowledge by means of connected perceptions,
the categories are conditions of the possibility of experience,
and are therefore valid a priori for all objects of experience.
* * *
When, for instance, by apprehension of the manifold of a B162
house I make the empirical intuition of it into a perception,
the necessary unity of space and of outer sensible intuition in
general lies at the basis of my apprehension, and I draw as it
were the outline of the house in conformity with this synthetic
unity of the manifold in space. But if I abstract from the form
of space, this same synthetic unity has its seat in the
understanding, and is the category of the synthesis of the homogeneous
in an intuition in general, that is, the category of quantity.
To this category, therefore, the synthesis of apprehension, that
is to say, the perception, must completely conform.
P 170n
++ Space, represented as object (as we are required to do in
geometry), contains more than mere form of intuition; it also contains
combination of the manifold, given according to the form of sensibility,
in an intuitive representation, so that the form of intuition
gives only a manifold, the formal intuition gives unity of representation.
In the Aesthetic I have treated this unity as belonging merely
P 171n
to sensibility, simply in order to emphasise that it precedes any B161
concept, although, as a matter of fact, it presupposes a synthesis which
does not belong to the senses but through which all concepts of
space and time first become possible. For since by its means (in that
the understanding determines the sensibility) space and time are
first given as intuitions, the unity of this a priori intuition belongs to
space and time, and not to the concept of the understanding (cf.
$24).
++ In this manner it is proved that the synthesis of apprehension,
which is empirical, must necessarily be in conformity with the synthesis
of apperception, which is intellectual and is contained in the
category completely a priori. It is one and the same spontaneity,
P 172n
which in the one case, under the title of imagination, and in the other
case, under the title of understanding, brings combination into the
manifold of intuition.
P 172
When, to take another example, I perceive the freezing of
water, I apprehend two states, fluidity and solidity, and these
as standing to one another in a relation of time. But in time,
which I place at the basis of the appearance [in so far] as B163
[it is] inner intuition, I necessarily represent to myself synthetic
unity of the manifold, without which that relation of time could
not be given in an intuition as being determined in respect of
time-sequence. Now this synthetic unity, as a condition
a priori under which I combine the manifold of an intuition
in general, is — if I abstract from the constant form of
my inner intuition, namely, time — the category of cause, by
means of which, when I apply it to my sensibility, I determine
everything that happens in accordance with the relation
which it prescribes, and I do so in time in general. Thus my
apprehension of such an event, and therefore the event itself,
considered as a possible perception, is subject to the concept
of the relation of effects and causes, and so in all other
cases.
Categories are concepts which prescribe laws a priori to
appearances, and therefore to nature, the sum of all appearances
(natura materialiter spectata). The question therefore
arises, how it can be conceivable that nature should have to
proceed in accordance with categories which yet are not
derived from it, and do not model themselves upon its pattern;
that is, how they can determine a priori the combination of
the manifold of nature, while yet they are not derived from it.
The solution of this seeming enigma is as follows.
That the laws of appearances in nature must agree with the B164
understanding and its a priori form, that is, with its faculty
of combining the manifold in general, is no more surprising
than that the appearances themselves must agree with the form
of a priori sensible intuition. For just as appearances do not
exist in themselves but only relatively to the subject in which,
so far as it has senses, they inhere, so the laws do not exist in
the appearances but only relatively to this same being, so far as
it has understanding. Things in themselves would necessarily,
P 173
apart from any understanding that knows them, conform to
laws of their own. But appearances are only representations of
things which are unknown as regards what they may be in
themselves. As mere representations, they are subject to no
law of connection save that which the connecting faculty
prescribes. Now it is imagination that connects the manifold of
sensible intuition; and imagination is dependent for the unity
of its intellectual synthesis upon the understanding, and for
the manifoldness of its apprehension upon sensibility. All
possible perception is thus dependent upon synthesis of
apprehension, and this empirical synthesis in turn upon
transcendental synthesis, and therefore upon the categories.
Consequently, all possible perceptions, and therefore everything that
can come to empirical consciousness, that is, all appearances
of nature, must, so far as their connection is concerned, be B165
subject to the categories. Nature, considered merely as nature in
general, is dependent upon these categories as the original
ground of its necessary conformity to law (natura formaliter
spectata). Pure understanding is not, however, in a position,
through mere categories, to prescribe to appearances any
a priori laws other than those which are involved in a nature
in general, that is, in the conformity to law of all appearances
in space and time. Special laws, as concerning those appearances
which are empirically determined, cannot in their specific
character be derived from the categories, although they are
one and all subject to them. To obtain any knowledge whatsoever
of these special laws, we must resort to experience; but
it is the a priori laws that alone can instruct us in regard to
experience in general, and as to what it is that can be known
as an object of experience.
$27
Outcome of this Deduction of the Concepts of
Understanding
We cannot think an object save through categories; we
cannot know an object so thought save through intuitions
corresponding to these concepts. Now all our intuitions are
sensible; and this knowledge, in so far as its object is given, is
empirical. But empirical knowledge is experience. Conse- B166
P 174
quently, there can be no a priori knowledge, except of objects
of possible experience.
But although this knowledge is limited to objects of experience,
it is not therefore all derived from experience. The
pure intuitions [of receptivity] and the pure concepts of
understanding are elements in knowledge, and both are found in us
a priori. There are only two ways in which we can account for
a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its
objects: either experience makes these concepts possible or these
concepts make experience possible. The former supposition
does not hold in respect of the categories (nor of pure sensible B167
intuition); for since they are a priori concepts, and therefore
independent of experience, the ascription to them of an
empirical origin would be a sort of generatio aequivoca. There
remains, therefore, only the second supposition — a system, as
it were, of the epigenesis of pure reason — namely, that the
categories contain, on the side of the understanding, the grounds
of the possibility of all experience in general. How they make
experience possible, and what are the principles of the
possibility of experience that they supply in their application to
appearances, will be shown more fully in the following chapter
on the transcendental employment of the faculty of judgment.
A middle course may be proposed between the two above
mentioned, namely, that the categories are neither self-thought
first principles a priori of our knowledge nor derived from
experience, but subjective dispositions of thought, implanted in
us from the first moment of our existence, and so ordered by
our Creator that their employment is in complete harmony
with the laws of nature in accordance with which experience
P 175
proceeds — a kind of preformation-system of pure reason.
P 174n
++ Lest my readers should stumble at the alarming evil consequences
which may over-hastily be inferred from this statement, I
may remind them that for thought the categories are not limited by
the conditions of our sensible intuition, but have an unlimited field.
It is only the knowledge of that which we think, the determining of
the object, that requires intuition. In the absence of intuition, the
thought of the object may still have its true and useful consequences,
as regards the subject’s employment of reason. The use of reason is
not always directed to the determination of an object, that is, to
knowledge, but also to the determination of the subject and of its volition
— a use which cannot be here dealt with.
P 175
Apart, however, from the objection that on such an hypothesis
we can set no limit to the assumption of predetermined
dispositions to future judgments, there is this decisive
objection against the suggested middle course, that the necessity B168
of the categories, which belongs to their very conception,
would then have to be sacrificed. The concept of cause, for
instance, which expresses the necessity of an event under a
presupposed condition, would be false if it rested only on an
arbitrary subjective necessity, implanted in us, of connecting
certain empirical representations according to the rule of
causal relation. I would not then be able to say that the effect
is connected with the cause in the object, that is to say,
necessarily, but only that I am so constituted that I cannot think
this representation otherwise than as thus connected. This is
exactly what the sceptic most desires. For if this be the situation,
all our insight, resting on the supposed objective validity
of our judgments, is nothing but sheer illusion; nor would
there be wanting people who would refuse to admit this subjective
necessity, a necessity which can only be felt. Certainly
a man cannot dispute with anyone regarding that which
depends merely on the mode in which he is himself organised.
Brief Outline of this Deduction
The deduction is the exposition of the pure concepts of the
understanding, and therewith of all theoretical a priori knowledge,
as principles of the possibility of experience — the principles
being here taken as the determination of appearances in
space and time in general, and this determination, in turn, as B169
ultimately following from the original synthetic unity of
apperception, as the form of the understanding in its relation to
space and time, the original forms of sensibility.
I consider the division by numbered paragraphs as necessary
up to this point, because thus far we have had to treat
of the elementary concepts. We have now to give an account
of their employment, and the exposition may therefore
proceed in continuous fashion, without such numbering.
TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC
BOOK II
THE ANALYTIC OF PRINCIPLES
GENERAL logic is constructed upon a ground plan which
exactly coincides with the division of the higher faculties of
knowledge. These are: understanding,judgment, and reason.
In accordance with the functions and order of these mental A131
powers, which in current speech are comprehended under the
general title of understanding, logic in its analytic deals with
concepts, judgments, and inferences.
Since this merely formal logic abstracts from all content B170
of knowledge, whether pure or empirical, and deals solely with
the form of thought in general (that is, of discursive
knowledge), it can comprehend the canon of reason in its analytic
portion. For the form of reason possesses its established rules,
which can be discovered a priori, simply by analysing the
actions of reason into their components, without our requiring
to take account of the special nature of the knowledge
involved.
As transcendental logic is limited to a certain determinate
content, namely, to the content of those modes of knowledge
which are pure and a priori, it cannot follow general logic in
this division. For the transcendental employment of reason is
not, it would seem, objectively valid, and consequently does
not belong to the logic of truth, i.e. to the Analytic. As a
logic of illusion, it calls for separate location in the scholastic
edifice, under the title of Transcendental Dialectic.
P 177
Understanding and judgment find, therefore, in transcendental
logic their canon of objectively valid and correct
employment; they belong to its analytic portion. Reason, on
the other hand, in its endeavours to determine something a –
priori in regard to objects and so to extend knowledge beyond B171
the limits of possible experience, is altogether dialectical. Its A132
illusory assertions cannot find place in a canon such as the
analytic is intended to contain.
The Analytic of Principles will therefore be a canon solely
for judgment, instructing it how to apply to appearances the
concepts of understanding, which contain the condition for
a priori rules. For this reason, while adopting as my theme
the principles of the understanding, strictly so called, I shall
employ the title doctrine of judgment as more accurately
indicating the nature of our task.
INTRODUCTION
TRANSCENDENTAL JUDGMENT IN GENERAL
If understanding in general is to be viewed as the faculty of
rules, judgment will be the faculty of subsuming under rules;
that is, of distinguishing whether something does or does not
stand under a given rule (casus datae legis). General logic
contains, and can contain, no rules for judgment. For since general
logic abstracts from all content of knowledge, the sole task that
remains to it is to give an analytical exposition of the form of A133 B172
knowledge [as expressed] in concepts, in judgments, and in
inferences, and so to obtain formal rules for all employment of
understanding. If it sought to give general instructions how we
are to subsume under these rules, that is, to distinguish whether
something does or does not come under them, that could only
be by means of another rule. This in turn, for the very reason
that it is a rule, again demands guidance from judgment.
And thus it appears that, though understanding is capable of
being instructed, and of being equipped with rules, judgment
is a peculiar talent which can be practised only, and cannot
be taught. It is the specific quality of so-called mother-wit;
and its lack no school can make good. For although an
abundance of rules borrowed from the insight of others may
P 178
indeed be proffered to, and as it were grafted upon, a limited
understanding, the power of rightly employing them must
belong to the learner himself; and in the absence of such a
natural gift no rule that may be prescribed to him for this
purpose can ensure against misuse. A physician, a judge, or a A134 B173
ruler may have at command many excellent pathological,
legal, or political rules, even to the degree that he may become
a profound teacher of them, and yet, none the less, may easily
stumble in their application. For, although admirable in
understanding, he may be wanting in natural power of judgment.
He may comprehend the universal in abstracto, and yet
not be able to distinguish whether a case in concreto comes
under it. Or the error may be due to his not having received,
through examples and actual practice, adequate training for
this particular act of judgment. Such sharpening of the judgment
is indeed the one great benefit of examples. Correctness
and precision of intellectual insight, on the other hand, they
more usually somewhat impair. For only very seldom do they
adequately fulfil the requirements of the rule (as casus in
terminis). Besides, they often weaken that effort which is
required of the understanding to comprehend properly the rules
in their universality, in independence of the particular
circumstances of experience, and so accustom us to use rules rather
as formulas than as principles. Examples are thus the go-cart
of judgment; and those who are lacking in the natural talent B174
can never dispense with them.
But although general logic can supply no rules for judgment, A135
the situation is entirely different in transcendental logic.
The latter would seem to have as its peculiar task the correcting
and securing of judgment, by means of determinate rules, in
the use of the pure understanding.
++ Deficiency in judgment is just what is ordinarily called stupidity,
and for such a failing there is no remedy. An obtuse or narrowminded
person to whom nothing is wanting save a proper degree of
understanding and the concepts appropriate thereto, may indeed be
trained through study, even to the extent of becoming learned. But
as such people are commonly still lacking in judgment (secunda B173
Petri), it is not unusual to meet learned men who in the application
of their scientific knowledge betray that original want, which can
never be made good.
P 178
For as a doctrine, that is,
P 179
as an attempt to enlarge the sphere of the understanding in
the field of pure a priori knowledge, philosophy is by no means
necessary, and is indeed ill-suited for any such purpose, since
in all attempts hitherto made, little or no ground has been won.
On the other hand, if what is designed be a critique to guard
against errors of judgment (lapsus judicii) in the employment
of the few pure concepts of understanding that we possess,
the task, merely negative as its advantages must then be, is
one to which philosophy is called upon to devote all its
resources of acuteness and penetration.
Transcendental philosophy has the peculiarity that besides
the rule (or rather the universal condition of rules), which is
given in the pure concept of understanding, it can also specify
a priori the instance to which the rule is to be applied. The B175
advantage which in this respect it possesses over all other
didactical sciences, with the exception of mathematics, is due
to the fact that it deals with concepts which have to relate to
objects a priori, and the objective validity of which cannot
therefore be demonstrated a posteriori, since that would mean A136
the complete ignoring of their peculiar dignity. It must
formulate by means of universal but sufficient marks the
conditions under which objects can be given in harmony with
these concepts. Otherwise the concepts would be void of all
content, and therefore mere logical forms, not pure concepts
of the understanding.
This transcendental doctrine of judgment will consist of
two chapters. The first will treat of the sensible condition under
which alone pure concepts of understanding can be employed,
that is, of the schematism of pure understanding. The second
will deal with the synthetic judgments which under these
conditions follow a priori from pure concepts of understanding,
and which lie a priori at the foundation of all other modes of
knowledge — that is, with the principles of pure understanding.
P 180
TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF JUDGMENT A137 B176
(OR ANALYTIC OF PRINCIPLES)
CHAPTER I
THE SCHEMATISM OF THE PURE CONCEPTS OF
UNDERSTANDING
In all subsumptions of an object under a concept the
representation of the object must be homogeneous with the concept;
in other words, the concept must contain something which is
represented in the object that is to be subsumed under it.
This, in fact, is what is meant by the expression, ‘an object is
contained under a concept’. Thus the empirical concept of a
plate is homogeneous with the pure geometrical concept of a
circle. The roundness which is thought in the latter can be
intuited in the former.
But pure concepts of understanding being quite heterogeneous
from empirical intuitions, and indeed from all
sensible intuitions, can never be met with in any intuition.
For no one will say that a category, such as that of causality,
can be intuited through sense and is itself contained in A138 B177
appearance. How, then, is the subsumption of intuitions under pure
concepts, the application of a category to appearances, possible?
A transcendental doctrine of judgment is necessary just
because of this natural and important question. We must be
able to show how pure concepts can be applicable to appearances.
In none of the other sciences is this necessary. For since
in these sciences the concepts through which the object is
thought in [its] general [aspects] are not so utterly distinct
and heterogeneous from those which represent it in concreto,
P 181
as given, no special discussion of the applicability of the
former to the latter is required.
Obviously there must be some third thing, which is homogeneous
on the one hand with the category, and on the other
hand with the appearance, and which thus makes the application
of the former to the latter possible. This mediating
representation must be pure, that is, void of all empirical
content, and yet at the same time, while it must in one
respect be intellectual, it must in another be sensible. Such a
representation is the transcendental schema.
The concept of understanding contains pure synthetic
unity of the manifold in general. Time, as the formal
condition of the manifold of inner sense, and therefore of the
connection of all representations, contains an a priori manifold
in pure intuition. Now a transcendental determination of
time is so far homogeneous with the category, which constitutes
its unity, in that it is universal and rests upon an B178
a priori rule. But, on the other hand, it is so far homogeneous A139
with appearance, in that time is contained in every empirical
representation of the manifold. Thus an application of the
category to appearances becomes possible by means of the
transcendental determination of time, which, as the schema
of the concepts of understanding, mediates the subsumption
of the appearances under the category.
After what has been proved in the deduction of the categories,
no one, I trust, will remain undecided in regard to
the question whether these pure concepts of understanding
are of merely empirical or also of transcendental employment;
that is, whether as conditions of a possible experience
they relate a priori solely to appearances, or whether, as
conditions of the possibility of things in general, they can be
extended to objects in themselves, without any restriction
to our sensibility. For we have seen that concepts are
altogether impossible, and can have no meaning, if no object
is given for them, or at least for the elements of which they
are composed. They cannot, therefore, be viewed as applicable
to things in themselves, independent of all question
as to whether and how these may be given to us. We
P 182
have also proved that the only manner in which objects
can be given to us is by modification of our sensibility; and
finally, that pure a priori concepts, in addition to the function B179
of understanding expressed in the category, must contain A140
a priori certain formal conditions of sensibility, namely, those
of inner sense. These conditions of sensibility constitute the
universal condition under which alone the category can be
applied to any object. This formal and pure condition of
sensibility to which the employment of the concept of
understanding is restricted, we shall entitle the schema of the
concept. The procedure of understanding in these schemata
we shall entitle the schematism of pure understanding.
The schema is in itself always a product of imagination.
Since, however, the synthesis of imagination aims at no
special intuition, but only at unity in the determination of
sensibility, the schema has to be distinguished from the image.
If five points be set alongside one another, thus, . . . . . , I
have an image of the number five. But if, on the other hand,
I think only a number in general, whether it be five or a
hundred, this thought is rather the representation of a method
whereby a multiplicity, for instance a thousand, may be
represented in an image in conformity with a certain concept,
than the image itself. For with such a number as a thousand
the image can hardly be surveyed and compared with the
concept. This representation of a universal procedure of
imagination in providing an image for a concept, I entitle the B180
schema of this concept.
Indeed it is schemata, not images of objects, which underlie
our pure sensible concepts. No image could ever be adequate A141
to the concept of a triangle in general. It would never attain
that universality of the concept which renders it valid of all
triangles, whether right-angled, obtuse-angled, or acute-
angled; it would always be limited to a part only of this
sphere. The schema of the triangle can exist nowhere but in
thought. It is a rule of synthesis of the imagination, in respect
to pure figures in space. Still less is an object of experience or
its image ever adequate to the empirical concept; for this latter
always stands in immediate relation to the schema of imagination,
as a rule for the determination of our intuition, in accordance
with some specific universal concept. The concept ‘dog’
P 183
signifies a rule according to which my imagination can
delineate the figure of a four-footed animal in a general
manner, without limitation to any single determinate figure
such as experience, or any possible image that I can represent
in concreto, actually presents. This schematism of our
understanding, in its application to appearances and their
mere form, is an art concealed in the depths of the human
soul, whose real modes of activity nature is hardly likely ever B181
to allow us to discover, and to have open to our gaze. This
much only we can assert: the image is a product of the
empirical faculty of reproductive imagination; the schema of
sensible concepts, such as of figures in space, is a product and, A142
as it were, a monogram, of pure a priori imagination, through
which, and in accordance with which, images themselves first
become possible. These images can be connected with the
concept only by means of the schema to which they belong.
In themselves they are never completely congruent with the
concept. On the other hand, the schema of a pure concept of
understanding can never be brought into any image whatsoever.
It is simply the pure synthesis, determined by a rule of
that unity, in accordance with concepts, to which the category
gives expression. It is a transcendental product of imagination,
a product which concerns the determination of inner
sense in general according to conditions of its form (time), in
respect of all representations, so far as these representations
are to be connected a priori in one concept in conformity with
the unity of apperception.
That we may not be further delayed by a dry and tedious
analysis of the conditions demanded by transcendental
schemata of the pure concepts of understanding in general,
we shall now expound them according to the order of the
categories and in connection with them.
The pure image of all magnitudes (quantorum) for outer B182
sense is space; that of all objects of the senses in general is
time. But the pure schema of magnitude (quantitatis), as a
concept of the understanding, is number, a representation
which comprises the successive addition of homogeneous
P 184
units. Number is therefore simply the unity of the synthesis A143
of the manifold of a homogeneous intuition in general, a unity
due to my generating time itself in the apprehension of the
intuition.
Reality, in the pure concept of understanding, is that
which corresponds to a sensation in general; it is that, therefore,
the concept of which in itself points to being (in time).
Negation is that the concept of which represents not-being
(in time). The opposition of these two thus rests upon the
distinction of one and the same time as filled and as empty.
Since time is merely the form of intuition, and so of objects
as appearances, that in the objects which corresponds to
sensation is not the transcendental matter of all objects as
things in themselves (thinghood, reality). Now every sensation
has a degree or magnitude whereby, in respect of its
representation of an object otherwise remaining the same,
it can fill out one and the same time, that is, occupy inner
sense more or less completely, down to its cessation in
nothingness (= 0 = 1negatio). There therefore exists a relation
and connection between reality and negation, or rather a
transition from the one to the other, which makes every reality B183
representable as a quantum. The schema of a reality, as the
quantity of something in so far as it fills time, is just this
continuous and uniform production of that reality in time as we
successively descend from a sensation which has a certain
degree to its vanishing point, or progressively ascend from
its negation to some magnitude of it.
The schema of substance is permanence of the real in time,
that is, the representation of the real as a substrate of empirical
determination of time in general, and so as abiding while all
else changes. (The existence of what is transitory passes away
in time but not time itself. To time, itself non-transitory and
abiding, there corresponds in the [field of] appearance what
is non-transitory in its existence, that is, substance. Only in
[relation to] substance can the succession and coexistence of
appearances be determined in time. )
P 185
The schema of cause, and of the causality of a thing in A144
general, is the real upon which, whenever posited, something
else always follows. It consists, therefore, in the succession
of the manifold, in so far as that succession is subject to a
rule.
The schema of community or reciprocity, the reciprocal
causality of substances in respect of their accidents, is the
coexistence, according to a universal rule, of the determinations B184
of the one substance with those of the other.
The schema of possibility is the agreement of the synthesis
of different representations with the conditions of time in
general. Opposites, for instance, cannot exist in the same thing
at the same time, but only the one after the other. The schema
is therefore the determination of the representation of a thing
at some time or other.
The schema of actuality is existence in some determinate A145
time.
The schema of necessity is existence of an object at all
times.
We thus find that the schema of each category contains and
makes capable of representation only a determination of time.
The schema of magnitude is the generation (synthesis) of
time itself in the successive apprehension of an object. The
schema of quality is the synthesis of sensation or perception
with the representation of time; it is the filling of time. The
schema of relation is the connecting of perceptions with one
another at all times according to a rule of time-determination.
Finally the schema of modality and of its categories is time
itself as the correlate of the determination whether and how
an object belongs to time. The schemata are thus nothing
but a priori determinations of time in accordance with rules.
These rules relate in the order of the categories to the time-
series, the time-content, the time-order, and lastly to the scope
of time in respect of all possible objects. B185
It is evident, therefore, that what the schematism of
understanding effects by means of the transcendental synthesis of
P 186
imagination is simply the unity of all the manifold of intuition
in inner sense, and so indirectly the unity of apperception which
as a function corresponds to the receptivity of inner sense.
The schemata of the pure concepts of understanding are thus A146
the true and sole conditions under which these concepts obtain
relation to objects and so possess significance. In the end,
therefore, the categories have no other possible employment
than the empirical. As the grounds of an a priori necessary
unity that has its source in the necessary combination of all
consciousness in one original apperception, they serve only to
subordinate appearances to universal rules of synthesis, and
thus to fit them for thoroughgoing connection in one
experience.
All our knowledge falls within the bounds of possible experience,
and just in this universal relation to possible experience
consists that transcendental truth which precedes all
empirical truth and makes it possible.
But it is also evident that although the schemata of sensibility
first realise the categories, they at the same time restrict B186
them, that is, limit them to conditions which lie outside the
understanding, and are due to sensibility. The schema is,
properly, only the phenomenon, or sensible concept, of an object
in agreement with the category. (Numerus est quantitas phaenomenon,
sensatio realitas phaenomenon, constans et perdurabile
rerum substantia phaenomenon, aeternitas necessitas phaenomenon,
etc. ) If we omit a restricting condition, we would seem
to extend the scope of the concept that was previously limited. A147
Arguing from this assumed fact, we conclude that the categories
in their pure significance, apart from all conditions of
sensibility, ought to apply to things in general, as they are,
and not, like the schemata, represent them only as they appear.
They ought, we conclude, to possess a meaning independent
of all schemata, and of much wider application. Now there
certainly does remain in the pure concepts of understanding,
even after elimination of every sensible condition, a meaning;
but it is purely logical, signifying only the bare unity of the
representations. The pure concepts can find no object, and so
P 187
can acquire no meaning which might yield a concept of some
object. Substance, for instance, when the sensible determination
of permanence is omitted, would mean simply a something
which can be thought only as subject, never as a predicate of
something else. Such a representation I can put to no use, for
it tells me nothing as to the nature of that which is thus to B187
be viewed as a primary subject. The categories, therefore,
without schemata, are merely functions of the understanding
for concepts; and represent no object. This [objective] meaning
they acquire from sensibility, which realises the
understanding in the very process of restricting it.
#17 an #18: Actually, that would be me. And I wonder how I evoked comments like #19 and 20. I can’t possibly bring myself to read it all, but is it making sense to anyone? Could it be my red shirt, or was it PZ’s yellow one?
Was all that long-winded shit supposed to make the Eucharist ritual any less preposterous? If so, it failed miserably.
@Annya Ivanova
too long, didn’t read
Makita,
Annya, was trying to show off her schemata.
I shall try to meet some new atheists in this overwhelming sea of fundamentalists living in this Medieval State we call Louisiana…
Makita,
It’s Kant, so it probably makes sense once you get past his idiosyncratic archaic German translated into English… but jeezus I’d forgotten how painful he is to actually read.
I’m sure it was your read shirt that got some Kant freak to start posting big hunks of the first Critique in Pharyngula comments. It’s like a red flag to a bull, only it’s not exactly a flag. But it’s red. (Kant said something about secondary properties like “red”.)
I just love your hammer drills, by the way.
Makita, you didn’t really try to read #19 and #20.. here is the rule of thumb
step 1) check if a post looks like a long winded spam
step 2) if yes note the post number
step 3) control-f and search for post_number+1
#26–
Hm, judging by Layla’s initial reference to PZ as a “loser,” I assumed she was another offended Catholic and that her long posts were a lame attempt to support the validity of the transubstantiation.
Something tells me she won’t stick around for a reasoned exchange.
Presumably, Layla and Annya are the same person. I guess she’s trying to give us an example of the pomposity she says offends her so much.
Could you zap this incoherent spammer for us, PZ?
oh yeah, you’ll see pathetic when PZ debates and demolishes that BANANNA Man!
If you want to make someone an atheist, just get them to work as a cleaner in a children’s hospital for six months.
When you see a five year old with cancer with tubes coming out of her, holding a teddy bear, it’s extremely difficult to believe there’s loving god, or anything like it.
I’m glad I became an atheist through reason (and lack of any serious religious upbringing) long before I was exposed to any horrors that might have forced it upon me.
I’m pleased I became an a-Copenhagen-interpretationist through reason (and lack of any serious obscurantist upbringing) long before I was exposed to any horrors that might have forced it upon me.
How is this relevant, again?
A quote from that Friendship Day website…
” Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival. ”
– C. S. Lewis
Wha???????????
I’m spoiled. Virtually everyone I know (besides older relatives) is an atheist. You should hear the discussions–honestly nobody can argue more than people who agree with each other. College educated lefties in the NC Triangle. I forget sometimes that I live in a bubble…
I’ve spent a lifetime surrounded by the most superstitious, credulous, anti-intellectual people you’d ever meet…sometimes I envy people who grew up in highly secular environments, but in a strange sort of way, I almost appreciate being close to the front line.
A little blast from the past…
C.S. Lewis makes less sense the more I read about him. He should have stuck to fantasy.
How is this relevant, again?
Me: #32
Someone else: #31
J: dense, as usual
He should have stuck to fantasy.
He did. :)
National Friendship Day? Is that anything like Tom Lehrer’s National Brotherhood Week?
You can count on Pharyngulites not to let a feed line go hungry…
Fascinating lady, indeed.
How the hell do you attract philosophical spam??
J: dense, as usual.
You’re the one who’s dense for believing that your opinion on whether or not an “intelligent” Turing machine created the Universe is relevant to anything other than (probably pointless) philosophical discussion.
We’re fighting the good fight here in Spain as well. A pretty good article In “El Pais” today on evolution with a neat side swipe at ID.
(In Spanish of course):
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/150/anos/liberados/creador/sobrenatural/elpepusoc/20080803elpepisoc_2/Tes
Well, we’ve got spam, eggs, sausage and spam–that’s not got much spam in it.
I see no one has cleared the skip in J’s record yet.
Someone please smack the side of that turntable.
#26, Paul W.:
My first thought: Hmm, ‘hammer drills’… That’s a new one.
Then it dawned on me. Um, never mind.
An interesting column in the Toronto Starhttp://www.thestar.com/living/article/469380 with decent comments, at least so far this morning.
Column starts with a story of a good Catholic alter boy who begins to question religion when his mother’s answer to the age old question;
“Why is the sky blue?” is answered with,
“Because it is God’s favourite colour”
Professor Christopher diCarlo, teaches bioethics and critical thinking at Univ of Ontario Institute of Technology with a somewhat tolerant bent toward those who have religious beliefs
The “worship squirrels” comment ranks up there with the best ever on tolerance.
The columnist, the Faith & Ethics Reporter, goes off on the “evil Darwin” tangent just a bit when he writes
Commenters on the column have negative things to say about that sentence, as you might imagine.
I see no one has cleared the skip in J’s record yet.
You do a good job hooting and jeering, but as yet nobody has told me the flaw in my argument.
AHA! PROOF AT LAST!
Atheists really are just secret muslims in disguise plotting to overthrow this Christain nation of yours!
If that is not the Swedish flag of Turkey, I don’t know what is!
Touché, G-Dhaters.
Nice article, Marktime. Thanks. (“El Instituto Discovery” – :); also loved the “ni el Vaticano se atreve” jab; I had to look up “aligustre,” then I had to look up “trivet.”) I think it’s important that the discussion of evolution there be more public; while it seems to be more accepted there than in the US, it’s hard to know whether people there really understand it.
BTW, I had given up on El País online, since they were charging for access. Is it free now, or is this article one of the relatively rare exceptions?
“privet”
Mornings.
He should have stuck to fantasy
I personally don’t find C.S. Lewis’ fantasies even mildly compelling. Although Mere Christianity is an ironically apt title, considering its contents.
OK, this is entirely too on topic, but the podcast for the show is up.
http://mnatheists.org/atheist_talk/Atheists_Talk-0030-8_03_2008.mp3
I apologize for the listeners that tried to call in but couldn’t get to. It was just too much. Please try next week, we hardly ever get calls.
More white guys. :)
I made it through the first 24 minutes, and then I couldn’t take it anymore. Christianity is such a crock.
Listened to the podcast and I have to re-iterate my favorite questions for apologists.
“How do you know God isn’t lying?”
I listened. It just seemed to me to be the same old intellectually bankrupt gibberish I always here from Christians on these matters. I am constantly amazed by how anyone could actually believe such stuff. Talking snakes and justifications for ancient slaughtering and A “god” that needs to kill itself to assuage its own anger at things it created.
Wick, how do we know YOU are not lying?
It struck me that one of the two christians described himself being raised a ‘cultural catholic’ and that he then became a believing christian due to attractive women. The other christian described himself as growing up agnostic – and then went to church because he ‘met girl … and that girl is now my wife’ . So in both cases, it seems to me that they believe because it was christian churches that provided the social structure through which they met women.
Their actual religious beliefs – which to me seem typically confused and contradictory – are actually quite secondary, I think.
J@#50:
“You do a good job hooting and jeering, but as yet nobody has told me the flaw in my argument.”
I’d refute it, but I have no idea what it is.
How does a bearded old fart like you manage to pull all the good ones PZ? Must be your animal magnetism eh?
Where can I get some? : )
I listened to Atheist Talk Radio last night, on the podcast. I thought, if anything, the hosts were incredibly polite and accommodating. Almost a bit too much so, but that’s just me.
I would kill to meet up with even one other atheist/agnostic here (other than the one I’m married to). Kill, I tell you…
Are you trying to make some point here, or are you merely attempting to look really stupid?