Kant's Theory of Knowledge Part 15

[9] 'To relate' is used rather than 'to recognize as related', in order to conform to Kant's view of knowledge.

But if it be desired to take the argument which follows in connexion with knowledge proper (cf. p. 242), it is only necessary to subst.i.tute throughout 'to recognize as related'

for 'to relate' and to make the other changes consequent thereon.

In the first place, it is clear that the general nature of the terms must correspond with or be adapted to the general nature of the relations.h.i.+p to be effected. Thus if two terms are to be related as more or less loud, they must be sounds, since the relation in question is one in respect of sound and not, e. g., of time or colour or s.p.a.ce.

Similarly, terms to be related as right and left must be bodies in s.p.a.ce, right and left being a spatial relation. Again, only human beings can be related as parent and child. Kant's doctrine, however, does not conform to this presupposition. For the manifold to be related consists solely of sensations, and of individual s.p.a.ces, and perhaps individual times, as elements of pure perception; and such a manifold is not of the kind required. Possibly individual s.p.a.ces may be regarded as adequate terms to be related or combined into geometrical figures, e. g. into lines or triangles. But a house as a synthesis of a manifold cannot be a synthesis of s.p.a.ces, or of times, or of sensations. Its parts are bodies, which, whatever they may be, are neither sensations nor s.p.a.ces nor times, nor combinations of them.

In reality they are substances of a special kind. Again, the relation of cause and effect is not a relation of sensations or s.p.a.ces or times, but of successive states of physical things or substances, the relation consisting in the necessity of their succession.

In the second place, it is clear that the special nature of the relation to be effected presupposes a special nature on the part of the terms to be related. If one sound is to be related to another by way of the octave, that other must be its octave. If one quant.i.ty is to be related to another as the double of it, that quant.i.ty must be twice as large as the other. In the same way, proceeding to Kant's instances, we see that if we are to combine or relate a manifold into a triangle, and therefore into a triangle of a particular size and shape, the elements of the manifold must be lines, and lines of a particular size. If we are to combine a manifold into a house, and therefore into a house of a certain shape and size, the manifold must consist of bodies of a suitable shape and size. If we are to relate a manifold by way of necessary succession, the manifold must be such that it can be so related; in other words, if we are to relate an element X of the manifold with some other Y as the necessary antecedent of X, there must be some definite element Y which is connected with, and always occurs along with, X. To put the matter generally, we may say that the manifold must be adapted to or 'fit'

the categories not only, as has been pointed out, in the sense that it must be of the right kind, but also in the sense that its individual elements must have that orderly character which enables them to be related according to the categories.

Now it is plain from Kant's vindication of what he calls the affinity of phenomena,[10] that he recognizes the existence of this presupposition. But the question arises whether this vindication can be successful. For since the manifold is originated by the thing in itself, it seems prima facie impossible to prove that the elements of the manifold must have affinity, and so be capable of being related according to the categories. Before, however, we consider the chief pa.s.sage in which Kant tries to make good his position, we may notice a defence which might naturally be offered on his behalf. It might be said that he establishes the conformity of the manifold to the categories at least hypothetically, i. e. upon the supposition that the manifold is capable of entering into knowledge, and also upon the supposition that we are capable of being conscious of our ident.i.ty with respect to it; for upon either supposition any element of the manifold must be capable of being combined with all the rest into one world of nature. Moreover, it might be added that these suppositions are justified, for our experience is not a mere dream, but is throughout the consciousness of a world, and we are self-conscious throughout our experience; and therefore it is clear that the manifold does in fact 'fit' the categories. But the retort is obvious. Any actual conformity of the manifold to the categories would upon this view be at best but an empirical fact, and, although, if the conformity ceased, we should cease to be aware of a world and of ourselves, no reason has been or can be given why the conformity should not cease.

[10] Cf. A. 100-2, Mah. 195-7 (quoted pp. 171-2); A. 113, Mah. 205; A. 121-2, Mah. 211-2.

The pa.s.sage in which Kant vindicates the affinity of phenomena in the greatest detail is the following:

"We will now try to exhibit the necessary connexion of the understanding with phenomena by means of the categories, by beginning from below, i. e. from the empirical end. The first that is given us is a phenomenon, which if connected with consciousness is called perception[11].... But because every phenomenon contains a manifold, and consequently different perceptions are found in the mind scattered and single, a connexion of them is necessary, which they cannot have in mere sense. There is, therefore, in us an active power of synthesis of this manifold, which we call imagination, and the action of which, when exercised immediately upon perceptions, I call apprehension. The business of the imagination, that is to say, is to bring the manifold of intuition[12] into an _image_; it must, therefore, first receive the impressions into its activity, i. e. apprehend them."

[11] _Wahrnehmung._

[12] _Anschauung._

"But it is clear that even this apprehension of the manifold would not by itself produce an image and a connexion of the impressions, unless there were a subjective ground in virtue of which one perception, from which the mind has pa.s.sed to another, is summoned to join that which follows, and thus whole series of perceptions are presented, i. e. a reproductive power of imagination, which power, however, is also only empirical."

"But if representations reproduced one another at haphazard just as they happened to meet together, once more no determinate connexion would arise, but merely chaotic heaps of them, and consequently no knowledge would arise; therefore the reproduction of them must have a rule, according to which a representation enters into connexion with this rather than with another in the imagination. This subjective and _empirical_ ground of reproduction according to rules is called the _a.s.sociation_ of representations."

"But now, if this unity of a.s.sociation had not also an objective ground, so that it was impossible that phenomena should be apprehended by the imagination otherwise than under the condition of a possible synthetic unity of this apprehension, it would also be a pure accident that phenomena were adapted to a connected system of human knowledge.

For although we should have the power of a.s.sociating perceptions, it would still remain wholly undetermined and accidental whether they were a.s.sociable; and in the event of their not being so, a mult.i.tude of perceptions and even perhaps a whole sensibility would be possible, in which much empirical consciousness would be met with in my mind, but divided and without belonging to _one_ consciousness of myself, which however is impossible. For only in that I ascribe all perceptions to one consciousness (the original apperception) can I say of all of them that I am conscious of them. There must therefore be an objective ground, i. e. a ground to be recognized _a priori_ before all empirical laws of the imagination, on which rests the possibility, nay even the necessity, of a law which extends throughout all phenomena, according to which we regard them without exception as such data of the senses, as are in themselves a.s.sociable and subjected to universal rules of a thorough-going connexion in reproduction. This objective ground of all a.s.sociation of phenomena I call the _affinity_ of phenomena. But we can meet this nowhere else than in the principle of the unity of apperception as regards all cognitions which are to belong to me. According to it, all phenomena without exception must so enter into the mind or be apprehended as to agree with the unity of apperception, which agreement would be impossible without synthetical unity in their connexion, which therefore is also objectively necessary."

"The objective unity of all (empirical) consciousness in one consciousness (the original apperception) is therefore the necessary condition even of all possible perception, and the affinity of all phenomena (near or remote) is a necessary consequence of a synthesis in the imagination, which is _a priori_ founded upon rules."

"The imagination is therefore also a power of _a priori_ synthesis, for which reason we give it the name of the productive imagination; and so far as it, in relation to all the manifold of the phenomenon, has no further aim than the necessary unity in the synthesis of the phenomenon, it can be called the transcendental function of the imagination. It is therefore strange indeed, but nevertheless clear from the preceding, that only by means of this transcendental function of the imagination does even the affinity of phenomena, and with it their a.s.sociation and, through this, lastly their reproduction according to laws, and consequently experience itself become possible, because without it no conceptions of objects would ever come together into one experience."[13]

[13] A. 119-23, Mah. 210-3.

If it were not for the last two paragraphs[14], we should understand this difficult pa.s.sage to be substantially identical in meaning with the defence of the affinity of phenomena just given.[15] We should understand Kant to be saying (1) that the synthesis which knowledge requires presupposes not merely a faculty of a.s.sociation on our part by which we reproduce elements of the manifold according to rules, but also an affinity on the part of the manifold to be apprehended, which enables our faculty of a.s.sociation to get to work, and (2) that this affinity can be vindicated as a presupposition at once of knowledge and of self-consciousness.

[14] And also the first and last sentence of the fourth paragraph, where Kant speaks not of 'phenomena which are to be apprehended', but of the 'apprehension of phenomena' as necessarily agreeing with the unity of apperception.

[15] p. 220.

In view, however, of the fact that, according to the last two paragraphs, the affinity is due to the imagination,[16] it seems necessary to interpret the pa.s.sage thus:

[16] It should be noted that in the last paragraph but one Kant does not say '_our knowledge_ that phenomena must have affinity is a consequence of _our knowledge_ that there must be a synthesis of the imagination', but 'the affinity of all phenomena is a consequence of a synthesis in the imagination'. And the last paragraph precludes the view that in making the latter statement he meant the former. Cf. also A. 101, Mah. 196.

'Since the given manifold of sense consists of isolated elements, this manifold, in order to enter into knowledge, must be combined into an image. This combination is effected by the imagination, which however must first apprehend the elements one by one.'

'But this apprehension of the manifold by the imagination could produce no image, unless the imagination also possessed the power of reproducing past elements of the manifold, and, if knowledge is to arise, of reproducing them according to rules. This faculty of reproduction by which, on perceiving the element A, we are led to think of or reproduce a past element B--B being reproduced according to some rule--rather than C or D is called the faculty of a.s.sociation; and since the rules according to which it works depend on empirical conditions, and therefore cannot be antic.i.p.ated _a priori_, it may be called the subjective ground of reproduction.'

'But if the image produced by a.s.sociation is to play a part in knowledge, the empirical faculty of reproduction is not a sufficient condition or ground of it. A further condition is implied, which may be called objective in the sense that it is _a priori_ and prior to all empirical laws of imagination. This condition is that the act by which the data of sense enter the mind or are apprehended, i. e. the act by which the imagination _apprehends and combines_ the data of sense into a sensuous image, must _make_ the elements such that they have affinity, and therefore such that they can subsequently be recognized as parts of a necessarily related whole.[17] Unless this condition is satisfied, even if we possessed the faculty of a.s.sociation, our experience would be a chaos of disconnected elements, and we could not be self-conscious, which is impossible. Starting, therefore, with the principle that we must be capable of being self-conscious with respect to all the elements of the manifold, we can lay down _a priori_ that this condition is a fact.'

[17] On this interpretation 'entering the mind' or 'being apprehended' in the fourth paragraph does not refer merely to the apprehension of elements one by one, which is preliminary to the act of combining them, but includes the act by which they are combined. If so, Kant's argument formally involves a circle. For in the second and third paragraphs he argues that the synthesis of perceptions involves reproduction according to rules, and then, in the fourth paragraph, he argues that this reproduction presupposes a synthesis of perceptions. We may, however, perhaps regard his argument as being in substance that knowledge involves _re_production by the imagination of elements capable of connexion, and that this reproduction involves _pro_duction by the imagination of the data of sense, which are to be reproduced, into an image.

'It follows, then, that the affinity or connectedness of the data of sense presupposed by the _re_production which is presupposed in knowledge, is actually produced by the _pro_ductive faculty of imagination, which, in combining the data into a sensuous image, gives them the unity required.'

If, as it seems necessary to believe, this be the correct interpretation of the pa.s.sage,[18] Kant is here trying to carry out to the full his doctrine that _all_ unity or connectedness comes from the mind's activity. He is maintaining that the imagination, acting _pro_ductively on the data of sense and thereby combining them into an image, gives the data a connectedness which the understanding can subsequently recognize. But to maintain this is, of course, only to throw the problem one stage further back. If reproduction, in order to enter into knowledge, implies a manifold which has such connexion that it is capable of being reproduced according to rules, so the production of sense-elements into a coherent image in turn implies sense-elements capable of being so combined. The act of combination cannot confer upon them or introduce into them a unity which they do not already possess.

[18] If the preceding interpretation (pp. 223-4) be thought the correct one, it must be admitted that Kant's vindication of the affinity breaks down for the reason given, p. 220.

The fact is that this step in Kant's argument exhibits the final breakdown of his view that all unity or connectedness or relatedness is conferred upon the data of sense by the activity of the mind.

Consequently, this forms a convenient point at which to consider what seems to be the fundamental mistake of this view. The mistake stated in its most general form appears to be that, misled by his theory of perception, he regards 'terms' as given by things in themselves acting on the sensibility, and 'relations' as introduced by the understanding,[19] whereas the fact is that in the sense in which terms can be said to be given, relations can and must also be said to be given.

[19] The understanding being taken to include the imagination, as being the faculty of _spontaneity_ in distinction from the _pa.s.sive_ sensibility.

To realize that this is the case, we need only consider Kant's favourite instance of knowledge, the apprehension of a straight line.

According to him, this presupposes that there is given to us a manifold, which--whether he admits it or not--must really be parts of the line, and that we combine this manifold on a principle involved in the nature of straightness. Now suppose that the manifold given is the parts AB, BC, CD, DE of the line AE. It is clearly only possible to recognize AB and BC as contiguous parts of a straight line, if we immediately apprehend that AB and BC form one line of which these parts are identical in direction. Otherwise, we might just as well join AB and BC at a right angle, and in fact at any angle; we need not even make AB and BC contiguous.[20] Similarly, the relation of BC to CD and of CD to DE must be just as immediately apprehended as the parts themselves. Is there, however, any relation of which it could be said that it is not given, and to which therefore Kant's doctrine might seem to apply? There is. Suppose AB, BC, CD to be of such a size that, though we can see AB and BC, or BC and CD, together, we cannot see AB and CD together. It is clear that in this case we can only learn that AB and CD are parts of the same straight line through an inference. We have to infer that, because each is in the same straight line with BC, the one is in the same straight line with the other.

Here the fact that AB and CD are in the same straight line is not immediately apprehended. This relation, therefore, may be said not to be given; and, from Kant's point of view, we could say that we introduce this relation into the manifold through our activity of thinking, which combines AB and CD together in accordance with the principle that two straight lines which are in the same line with a third are in line with one another. Nevertheless, this case is no exception to the general principle that relations must be given equally with terms; for we only become aware of the relation between AB and CD, which is not given, because we are already aware of other relations, viz. those between AB and BC, and BC and CD, which are given. Relations then, or, in Kant's language, particular syntheses must be said to be given, in the sense in which the elements to be combined can be said to be given.

[20] In order to meet a possible objection, it may be pointed out that if AB and BC be given in isolation, the contiguity implied in referring to them as A_B_ and _B_C will not be known.

Further, we can better see the nature of Kant's mistake in this respect, if we bear in mind that Kant originally and rightly introduced the distinction between the sensibility and the understanding as that between the pa.s.sive faculty by which an individual is given or presented to us and the active faculty by which we bring an individual under, or recognize it as an instance of a universal.[21] For we then see that Kant in the _Transcendental Deduction_, by treating what is given by the sensibility as terms and what is contributed by the understanding as relations, is really confusing the distinction between a relation and its terms with that between universal and individual; in other words, he says of terms what ought to be said of individuals, and of relations what ought to be said of universals. That the confusion is a confusion, and not a legitimate identification, it is easy to see. For, on the one hand, a relation between terms is as much an individual as either of the terms. That a body A is to the right of a body B is as much an individual fact as either A or B.[22] And if terms, as being individuals, belong to perception and are given, in the sense that they are in an immediate relation to us, relations, as being individuals, equally belong to perception and are given. On the other hand, individual terms just as much as individual relations imply corresponding universals. An individual body implies 'bodiness', just as much as the fact that a body A is to the right of a body B implies the relations.h.i.+p of 'being to the right of something'. And if, as is the case, thinking or conceiving in distinction from perceiving, is that activity by which we recognize an individual, given in perception, as one of a kind, conceiving is involved as much in the apprehension of a term as in the apprehension of a relation. The apprehension of 'this red body' as much involves the recognition of an individual as an instance of a kind, i. e. as much involves an act of the understanding, as does the apprehension of the fact that it is brighter than some other body.

[21] Cf. pp. 27-9.

[22] I can attach no meaning to Mr. Bertrand Russell's a.s.sertion that relations have no instances. See _The Principles of Mathematics_, -- 55.

Kant has failed to notice this confusion for two reasons. In the first place, beginning in the _a.n.a.lytic_ with the thought that the thing in itself, by acting on our sensibility, produces isolated sense data, he is led to adopt a different view of the understanding from that which he originally gave, and to conceive its business as consisting in relating these data. In the second place, by distinguis.h.i.+ng the imagination from the understanding, he is able to confine the understanding to being the source of universals or principles of relation in distinction from individual relations.[23] Since, however, as has been pointed out, and as Kant himself sees at times, the imagination is the understanding working unreflectively, this limitation cannot be successful.

[23] Cf. p. 217.

There remain for consideration the difficulties of the second kind, i. e. the difficulties involved in accepting its main principles at all. These are of course the most important. Throughout the deduction Kant is attempting to formulate the nature of knowledge. According to him, it consists in an activity of the mind by which it combines the manifold of sense on certain principles and is to some extent aware that it does so, and by which it thereby gives the manifold relation to an object. Now the fundamental and final objection to this account is that what it describes is not knowledge at all. The justice of this objection may be seen by considering the two leading thoughts underlying the view, which, though closely connected, may be treated separately. These are the thought of knowledge as a process by which representations acquire relation to an object, and the thought of knowledge as a process of synthesis.

It is in reality meaningless to speak of 'a process by which representations or ideas acquire relation to an object'.[24] The phrase must mean a process by which a mere apprehension, which, as such, is not the apprehension of an object, becomes the apprehension of an object. Apprehension, however, is essentially and from the very beginning the apprehension of an object, i. e. of a reality apprehended. If there is no object which the apprehension is 'of', there is no apprehension. It is therefore wholly meaningless to speak of a process by which an apprehension _becomes_ the apprehension of an object. If when we reflected we were not aware of an object, i. e. a reality apprehended, we could not be aware of our apprehension; for our apprehension is the apprehension of it, and is itself only apprehended in relation to, though in distinction from, it. It is therefore impossible to suppose a condition of mind in which, knowing what 'apprehension' means, we proceed to ask, 'What is meant by an object of it?' and 'How does an apprehension become related to an object?'; for both questions involve the thought of a mere representation, i. e. of an apprehension which as yet is not the apprehension of anything.

[24] Cf. p. 180, and pp. 280-3.

These questions, when their real nature is exhibited, are plainly absurd. Kant's special theory, however, enables him to evade the real absurdity involved. For, according to his view, a representation is the representation or apprehension of something only from the point of view of the thing in itself. As an appearance or perhaps more strictly speaking as a sensation, it has also a being of its own which is not relative[25]; and from this point of view it _is_ possible to speak of 'mere' representations and to raise questions which presuppose their reality.[26]

[25] Cf. p. 137 init.

[26] The absurdity of the problem really propounded is also concealed from Kant in the way indicated, pp. 180 fin.-181 init.

But this remedy, if remedy it can be called, is at least as bad as the disease. For, in the first place, the change of standpoint is necessarily illegitimate. An appearance or sensation is not from any point of view a representation in the proper sense, i. e. a representation or apprehension of something. It is simply a reality to be apprehended, of the special kind called mental. If it be called a representation, the word must have a new meaning; it must mean something represented, or presented,[27] i. e. object of apprehension, with the implication that what is presented, or is object of apprehension, is mental or a modification of the mind. Kant therefore only avoids the original absurdity by an illegitimate change of standpoint, the change being concealed by a tacit transition in the meaning of representation. In the second place, the change of standpoint only saves the main problem from being absurd by rendering it insoluble. For if a representation be taken to be an appearance or a sensation, the main problem becomes that of explaining how it is that, beginning with the apprehension of mere appearances or sensations, we come to apprehend an object, in the sense of an object in nature, which, as such, is not an appearance or sensation but a part of the physical world. But if the immediate object of apprehension were in this way confined to appearances, which are, to use Kant's phrase, determinations of our mind, our apprehension would be limited to these appearances, and any apprehension of an object in nature would be impossible.[28] In fact, it is just the view that the immediate object of apprehension consists in a determination of the mind which forms the basis of the solipsist position. Kant's own solution involves an absurdity at least as great as that involved in the thought of a mere representation, in the proper sense of representation. For the solution is that appearances or sensations become related to an object, in the sense of an object in nature, by being combined on certain principles. Yet it is plainly impossible to combine appearances or sensations into an object in nature. If a triangle, or a house, or 'a freezing of water'[29] is the result of any process of combination, the elements combined must be respectively lines, and bricks, and physical events; these are objects in the sense in which the whole produced by the combination is an object, and are certainly not appearances or sensations. Kant conceals the difficulty from himself by the use of language to which he is not ent.i.tled. For while his instances of objects are always of the kind indicated, he persists in calling the manifold combined 'representations', i. e.

presented mental modifications. This procedure is of course facilitated for him by his view that nature is a phenomenon or appearance, but the difficulty which it presents to the reader culminates when he speaks of the very same representations as having both a subjective and an objective relation, i. e. as being both modifications of the mind and parts of nature.[30]

[27] _Vorgestellt._

[28] Cf. p. 123.