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Philosophy 190: Seminar on Kant
Spring, 2015
Prof. Peter Hadreas
Course website:
http://oucampus.sjsu.edu/people/peter.hadreas/courses/Ka
nt/index.html
The Transcendental Logic:
Introduction,
Metaphysical Deduction
pp. 193 - 218.
Critique of Pure
Reason
Prefaces
Introduction
First Part
Trans.
Aesthetic
Transcendent
al Doctrine
of Elements
Second Part
Trans. Logic
Division Two:
Trans.
Dialectic
Division One:
Trans.
Analytic
Book I:
Analytic of
Concepts
Transcendent
al Method
Book II:
Analytic of
Principles
Introduction
Book I:
Concepts of
Pure Reason
Book II: The
dialectical
inferences of
pure reason
Transcendental Doctrine of Elements; Second
Part: Transcendental Logic. Chapter one: Logic
in General
First two paragraphs contains a review of key basic Kantian
distinction and doctrines:
1. Knowledge springs from two sources: a) the capacity of
receiving impressions, b) the power of knowing an object or
state of affairs through the spontaneous administration of
concepts. “Intuition and concepts constitute therefore, the
elements of all our knowledge . . . ” (p. 193)
2. “Both [intuitions and concepts] are either pure or empirical.”
(p. 193)
3. “Empirical, if sensation (which presupposes the actual
presence of the object), is contained therein; but pure if no
sensation is mixed into the representation.” (p. 193)
Transcendental Doctrine of Elements; Second Part:
Transcendental Logic. Chapter one: Logic in
General
5. Key sentence: “Thus pure intuition merely contains only the
form under which something is intuited, and pure concept only
the form of the thinking of an object in general.” (p. 193)
6. “ Only pure intuitions or concepts alone are possible a priori,
empirical ones only a posteriori. (p. 193)
7 “. . . the spontaneity of cognition, is the understanding.” (p.
193)
8. “Without sensibility no object would be given to us, without
understanding none would be thought. Thoughts without
content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. . .
Further, these two powers or capacities cannot exchange their
functions. The understanding is not capable of intuiting
anything, and the senses are not capable of thinking anything.”
(pp. 193-4).
Transcendental Doctrine of Elements; Second Part:
Transcendental Logic. Chapter one: Logic in
General
9. A general but pure logic therefore has to do with strictly a
priori principles. . . .” (p. 194) Consider as an example the rules
of valid syllogisms of derivations in a propositional calculus
10. “A general logic, however, is called applied [and therefore
not pure] if it is directed to the rules of use of the understanding
under the empirical conditions that psychology teaches us.”
An example today would a description of logical fallacies, e. g.,
arguments ad hominem, ad misercordiam, by pity, or ad
periculum, by fear. It is usually called ‘informal logic’ today.
Kant’s Discovery: Transcendental Logic
11. “In the expectation, therefore, that there can perhaps be
concepts that may be related to objects a priori, not as pure or
sensible intuitions but rather merely as acts of pure thinking,
that are thus concepts but of neither empirical nor aesthetic
origin, we provisionally formulate the idea of a science of pure
understanding and of the pure cognition of reason, by means of
which we think objects completely a priori. Such a science,
which would determine the origin, the domain, and the objective
validity of such cognitions, would have to be called
transcendental logic, since it has to do merely with the laws of
the understanding and reason, but solely insofar as they are
related to objects a priori and not, as in the case of general logic,
to empirical as well as pure cognitions of reason without
distinction.” (p. 196)
Kant’s Divides Transcendental Logic into
Analytic and Dialectic
12. “In a transcendental logic we isolate the understanding (as
we did above with sensibility in the transcendental aesthetic),
and elevate from our cognition merely the part of our thought
that has its origin solely in the understanding. . . . The part of
transcendental logic, therefore, that expounds the elements of
the pure cognition of the understanding and the principles
without which no object can be thought at all, is the
transcendental analytic, and at the same time a logic of truth.
Kant’s Divides Transcendental Logic into
Analytic and Dialectic
12. “But because it is very enticing and seductive to make use of
these pure cognitions of the understanding and principles by
themselves, and even beyond all bounds of experience, . . . the
understanding falls into the danger of making a material use of
the merely formal principles of pure understanding through
empty sophistries, and of judging without distinction about
objects that are not given to us, which perhaps indeed could not
be given to us in any way. . . . The use of the pure understanding
would in this case therefore be dialectical. The second part of the
transcendental logic must therefore be a critique of this
dialectical illusion, and is called transcendental dialectic . . . in
order to uncover the false illusion of their groundless pretensions
. . . (p. 200)
Thinking Requires Intuition + Concepts. Kant
Calls that Cognitive Activity ‘Judgment’
“We can, however, trace all actions of the understanding
back to judgments, . . . For according to what has been said above it is a
faculty for thinking. Thinking is cognition through concepts. Concepts,
however, as predicates of possible judgments, are related to some
representation of a still undetermined object. The concept of body thus
signifies something, e.g., metal, which can be cognized through that concept.
It is therefore a concept only because other representations are contained
under it by means of which it can be related to objects. It is therefore the
predicate for a possible judgment, e.g., "Every metal is a body." The
functions of the understanding can therefore all be found together if one can
exhaustively exhibit the functions of unity in judgments. The following section
will make it evident that this can readily be accomplished.” (p. 205)
The Functions of Thinking – and Thinking
Consists in Making Judgments -- Can Be
Expressed Through Twelve Basic Types of
Judgment. In Kant’s Language they will involve
three ‘moments’ and four ‘titles.’
This Uncovering of the Basic Types of
Judgments Will Provide the Clue to the
Discovery of the Pure Concepts of
Understanding,” aka “The Transcendental
Categories of Understanding” (pp. 206)
TABLE OF JUDGMENTS: p. 206
four heads and three moments.
Aspect of
Judgment(s)
Feature of the
Judgment(s)
Form of
Judgment(s)
Explanation of Form of
Judgment(s)
Quantity
About the subject
of the judgment
Universal
All S are P
Particular
Some S are P
Singular
This S is P
Affirmative
P belongs to S
Negative
No P belongs to P
Infinite
S belong to non-P
Categorical
S is P
Hypothetical
If S is P, then R is Q
Disjunctive
S is either P or Q
Problematic
judgment is possible
Assertoric
judgment is actual
Apodeictic
judgment is necessary
Quality
Relation
Modality
about the
predicate of the
judgment
How judgments
interrelate within
syllogisms
Modality of the
judgment as a
whole
capybara
largest rodent in the world
capybara
largest rodent in the world
Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo
novaeguineae) perched on a Silver Wattle
(Acacia dealbata), Waterworks Reserve,
Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Aspect of
Feature of the
Judgment(s Judgment(s)
)
Form of
Judgment(s)
Examples of Form of Judgment(s)
Quantity
Universal
All capybaras are rodents
Particular
Some capybaras are males.
Singular
This capybara is female.
Affirmative
This kookaburra is a symbol of Australian
wildlife.
Negative
This kookaburra is a not symbol of
Australian wildlife.
Infinite
This kookaburra is non-symbol of
Australian wildlife.
Categorical
A kookaburra is a bird.
Hypothetical
If a kookaburra calls, then it is defining
its territory.
Disjunctive
Either the the kookaburra’s call is
defining its territory or seeking a mate.
Problematic
Possibly this capybara is tame.
Actually this capybara is tame.
Necessarily this kookaburra is
carnivorous.
Quality
Relation
Modality
About the subject
of the judgment
about the predicate
of the judgment
How judgments
interrelate within
syllogisms
Modality of the
judgment as a
whole
Assertoric
Apodeictic
“Robert Hanna on the Primacy of the Faculty of
Judgment for Kant”1
“The three leading features of this account are, first, Kant's
taking the innate capacity for judgment to be the central
cognitive faculty of the human mind, in the sense that judgment,
alone among our various cognitive achievements, is the joint
product of all of the other cognitive faculties operating
coherently and systematically together under a single higherorder unity of rational self-consciousness (the centrality thesis);
second, Kant's insistence on the explanatory priority of the
propositional content of a judgment over its basic cognitivesemantic constituents (i.e., intuitions and concepts), . . . “
[continues]
“Robert Hanna on the Primacy of the Faculty of Judgment for
Kant”
“. . . and third, Kant's background metaphysical doctrine . . .
that judgments are empirically meaningful (objectively valid)
and true (objectively real) if and only if transcendental idealism
is correct (the transcendental idealism thesis).”
1. Hanna, Robert, "Kant's Theory of Judgment", The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (Summer 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/entries/kant-judgment/>
Connecting Up Kant on ‘Judgment’ in the Critique of Pure
Reason to Kantian Philosophy as a Whole.
“Judgment is general is the faculty of thinking the particular as
subsumed under the universal. If the universal (the rule, the
principle, the law) is given, the judgment which subsumes the
law under it (even if it prescribes it as transcendental judgment
a priori the new conditions under which alone can be subsumed
under that universal) is determinative. But if only the particular
is given, for which the universal is to be found, the judgment is
merely reflective.”1
1. Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Judgment, Introduction, IV (V, 248) (Ak. V,
179).
Goethe on
Apprehending the
Explanatory Power of
Kant’s Critiques
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 –1832)
“Here I saw my most diverse thoughts brought together, artistic
and natural production handled the powers of aesthetic and
teleological judgment mutually illuminating each other . . . I
rejoiced that poetic art and comparative natural knowledge are
so closely related, since both are subjected to the power of
judgment.”1
1. As cited by Cassirer in Cassirer, Ernst, Kant’s Life and Thought, Haden
translation, (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 273.
Graham Bird on the Relation of the Table of
Judgments to the Table of Categories1
“Kant’s more specific intention to identify categories through, or
even with, fundamental judgment forms is open to objections
other a dubious reliance of his logic. Recent philosophy has a
tradition in which logic and language are conceived as reliable
guides to the formal structure of experience, and Kant’s project
has something in common with that view. In different ways
Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap and Quine have all been prepared
to endorse Kant-like views about a a logical structure for
experience but they would disagree with Kant on several issues.
Quine would disagree with Kant’s belief that judgment forms
provide the most fundamental features of language, since he
held, rather obscurely, that ‘the whole of science’ rather than
judgment so the unit of ‘empirical significance.’” [continues]
Graham Bird on the Relation of the Table of
Judgments to the Table of Categories
continued from previous slide: “But none of these recent
philosophers understood the idea of logic as a formal structure
in Kant’s way. The most they would concede is that logic in
general, and its preferred systems, provide for the forms in
which our experience, especially scientific experience, is
expressed.”
1. Bird, Graham, The Revolutionary Kant, (Chicago and La
Salle, IL: Open Court, 2006), p. 265
TABLE OF CATEGORIES: p. 212
Notes on Table of Categories
Kant mentions pure derivative concepts, he calls
them "predicables” e. g. from causality, 'force'
'action' and 'passion.' Under the category of
community, 'presence,' 'resistance.’ If not elements
in a reduction, Kant clearly sees these predicables
as capable of being traced back and
developmentally originary from the twelve
categories of understanding. (pp. 213-4/B 108)
Notes on Table of Categories
Kant asserts ”. . . the third category always arises
from from the combination of the first two in its
class.” (See citation from Hegel on slides #28 and
29 on appropriation of a developmental sense
among categories.) (p. 215/B111)
Notes on Table of Categories
Kant finally considers the so-called ‘syncategorematic
terms’ proposed Scholastic philosophers of every being,
namely, ”the one, the true, and the perfect: quodlibet ens
est unum. verum, bonum. Kant explains that these
syncatagorematic terms in terms of coalignments of the
Categories. Thus discourse and knowledge is a qualitative
unity if it to have a comprehensive significance, as ”. . .
the theme in a play, a speech, or fable.” The more
consequence from a judgment the more truth. Thus truth
is a qualitative plurality. And the greater the totality of a
body of knowledge agrees with itself, the more qualitative
totality or perfection. (p. 217/B114-5).
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
(1770 –1831)
Hegel on the Dynamic Interconnection
of Kant’s Categories1
“Kant was the first definitely to signalize the distinction between
Reason and Understanding. The object of the former, as he
applied the term, was the infinite and unconditioned, of the
latter the finite and conditioned. Kant did valuable service when
he enforced the finite character of the cognitions of the
understanding founded merely upon experience, and stamped
their contents with the name of appearance. But his mistake was
to stop at the purely negative point of view, and to limit the
unconditionality of Reason to an abstract self-sameness without
any shade of distinction. It degrades Reason to a finite and
conditioned range of understanding.” [continues]
1. from Hegel's Logic: Being Part One of the Encyclopedia of the
Philosophical Sciences (1930) translated by William Wallace, (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1975), p. 73, Note to §45.
Hegel on the Dynamic Interconnection
of Kant’s Categories1
[continued from previous slide] “The real infinite, far from being
a mere transcendence of the finite, always involves the
absorption of the finite into its own fuller nature. In the same
way Kant restored the Idea to its proper dignity: vindicating it
for Reason, as a thing distinct from abstract analytic
determinations or from the merely sensible conception which
usually appropriate to themselves the name of ideas. But as
respects the Idea also, he never got beyond its negative aspect, as
what ought to be but is not.”
1. from Hegel's Logic: Being Part One of the Encyclopedia of the
Philosophical Sciences (1930) translated by William Wallace, (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1975), p. 73, Note to §45.
Slides #1, 3, 4, 5, Portrait of Immanuel Kant in mid-life:
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/users/philosophy/courses/100/Kant003.jpg
Slide # 2, photograph of a capybara:
https://www.google.com/search?q=capybara&bi
Slide # 3, photograph of a capybara: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&tbs=
slide #21: photograph of Goethe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe#mediaviewer/File:Goethe_
%28Stieler_1828%29.
slides # 28, 29, 30, portrait of Hegel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel#mediaviewer/File:Hegel
_portrait_by_Schlesinger_1831.jpg