CPR: Transcendental Aesthetic II

Last time I covered Kant’s arguments in the Aesthetic for space and time as a priori intuitions. (Well, I only actually covered space, but those for time are similar). Kant wants to go farther and argue that objects appear in space and time solely in virtue of their representation according to the subjective forms of intuition, that is, empirical reality as such is a product of the subject.

The Correlates: Empirical Reality and Transcendental Ideality [B43]

This was the distinction that made transcendental idealism really click for me, back when I was reading Schopenhauer (who, if you don’t know, was basically Kantian). I wrote about it here. Once this distinction is understood, one really begins to see the attraction of this philosophy, especially in the way it deals with scepticism.

The name transcendental idealism is slightly misleading, because the doctrine actually asserts a correlation between transcendental ideality and empirical reality.

Empirical reality…

...is real. It is not an illusion and appearances are not distortions. It is the way it necessarily is, because it is conditioned by the subject of experience in definite, objectively valid, forms, and there can be no knowledge of anything except through this conditioned experience, which sets up an inescapable correlation between subject and object.

The proposition, All things are side by side in space, is valid under the limitation that these things are taken as objects of our sensible intuition. [B43]

And when we are ordinarily talking about, interacting with and perceiving things, we are taking things as objects of our sensible intuition. We are thus not lacking grounds for belief in the external world, because this external world is objectively valid owing to our subjective faculties. Now, within this empirical reality we might also want to identify the empirically ideal, which would be the mental representations and sense-data conjured up by representational realists such as Locke and, later on (apparently not having appreciated the force of Kant’s arguments), Russell.

Because empirical reality as such is conditioned by the subject, there is no sense in saying it is distorted or illusory in experience. The way we experience it is the only way we can experience it, which is the same as saying it is the only way it is.

When I say that the intuition of outer objects and the self-intuition of the mind alike represent the objects and the mind, in space and time, as they affect our senses, that is, as they appear, I do not mean to say that these objects are a mere illusion... I am not saying that bodies merely seem to be outside me, or that my soul only seems to be given in my self-consciousness. [B69]

Berkeley

Thence to the empirical idealism of Berkeley. Kant, on the other hand, is not saying that there is no such thing as matter or that material objects are all in the mind. This is always understood from the point of view of – and in fact is a consequence of – the epistemology that has it that objects and their qualities are uncertain and impossible to see as they are. Kant is saying that what you see is what there is, and as it is, because what there is must accord with the conditioning forms of the subject in any case: that’s why there is a what there is in the first place. There is no other way of experiencing things, so there is little purchase for a scepticism about our ability to perceive objects as they are. In fact, like Schopenhauer, Kant seems here to come down on the side of direct realism, at least as far as he is an empirical realist.

Empirical objects for Kant are not ideas, but really are material objects in space, actually lying outside ourselves. Tables and chairs [Gardner p97] do not, as for Berkeley, share the same 'phenomenal existence’ as mental images.

This is not wholly convincing, because both come down to mind-dependence, and one might say that Kant just has a more elaborate hierarchy of appearances and representations.

Primary and Secondary Qualities

Locke’s distinction disappears for Berkeley, but not quite for Kant. But it does lose its philosophical significance. We cannot know the primary qualities of objects if these are meant as qualities of things-in-themselves (in fact, this is already to say too much). As objects of experience these objects are not things-in-themselves. However, Kant can still accept that some qualities of objects vary subjectively (from the human standpoint) than others, i.e., some qualities are more empirically real than others. But it’s important to note that the distinction for Kant concerns only empirical reality, and can therefore be left to psychologists of perception. [also see B62]

Let’s take extension. According to Kant, bodies are perceived as occupying space owing to the pure intuition of space. And other primary qualities, such as a body’s state of motion, could be seen as combining space and time. So primary qualities appear to be a direct expression of the concepts we use to think the a priori intuitions. Does this then mean that while secondary qualities are given to us in sensation, primary qualities are supplied by us? Is this paradoxical?

The following footnote is interesting both with respect to idealism and scepticism, and also with respect to primary and secondary qualities.

The predicates of the appearance can be ascribed to the object itself, in relation to our sense, for instance, the red colour or the scent to the rose. But what is illusory can never be ascribed as predicate to an object ... for instance, the two handles which were formerly ascribed to Saturn. That which, while inseparable from the representation of the object, is not to be met with in the object in itself, but always in its relation to the subject, is appearance. Accordingly the predicates of space and time are rightly ascribed to the objects of the senses, as such; and in this there is no illusion. On the other hand, if I describe redness to the rose in itself, handles to Saturn, or extension to all outer objects in themselves, without paying regard to the determinate relation of these objects to the subject, and without limiting my judgement to that relation, illusion then first arises. [Footnote B70, my emphasis]

Notice that primary and secondary qualities are here bundled together as being of the same status, showing that Kant believed himself to have dissolved the distinction’s importance.

Against Scepticism

Kant might seem on the surface to share much with the sceptic. Both, after all, doubt our knowledge of the world in itself. But beyond this there are big differences, and Kant is explicit in his opposition to scepticism. But in protecting us from it, he pays a price.

On the one hand, scepticism is possible only where the boundary of knowledge is in doubt. But Kant defines this boundary, thereby making scepticism utterly feeble against the only knowledge claims we can possibly make, i.e., those concerning experience. The pure forms of sensible intuition “determine their own limits” [B56].

Transcendental realism (Hume etc.), for which space and time relate things in themselves and the objects of experience – the objects of outer sense – are in turn seen as things in themselves, creates a problem of access: how can we experience space, and by the same token, how can we be certain of our knowledge of these objects? Objects are under this view independent of our representations. (It also, of course, holds the door open to empirical idealism.)

But transcendental idealism firmly establishes empirical realism, meaning that we have direct access to the objects of experience — they are, after all, phenomena, and there can be no question of access to phenomena, because phenomena are our own representations.

On the other hand, of course, an epistemologist might complain that we are thereby forever trapped behind the veil of the understanding.

More on scepticism another time

Transcendental Ideality

Let’s look at the first quotation again.

The proposition, All things are side by side in space, is valid under the limitation that these things are taken as objects of our sensible intuition. [B43]

The proposition is valid only under the limitation that we’re not taking things as mind-independent. So…

If here I add the condition to the concept and say, All things, as outer appearances, are side by side in space, then the rule obtains universal and unlimited validity.

He means “as outer appearances” as opposed to “as things in themselves”.

Transcendental ideality: When, philosophically, we consider the conditions under which the experience of objects in general is possible, we’re doing transcendental philosophy. Space and time, though empirically real, are now seen as transcendentally ideal.

HUMAN STANDPOINT: If you keep to ordinary life and, say, physics, it is perfectly correct to say “All things are side by side in space”.

TRANSCENDENTAL STANDPOINT: But if you’re going all transcendental (like Kant), you’re forced to add the limitation (first quotation above) or condition (second quotation above).

HUMAN STANDPOINT: Space and time are objective
TRANSCENDENTAL STANDPOINT: Space and time are subjective

Nature versus Nurture

Imagine an attempted objection (it’s not a good one, but it allows me to straighten out the basics)...

OBJECTION: You talk like space and time are hard-wired. In fact, they’re nothing without experience, because it’s in experience that things are related spatiotemporally. Experience is the key. It’s ridiculous to say that we can experience space and time before we even experience!

REPLY: Kant would agree! I find it helps to think of the a priori forms of intuition as being triggered by experience, such that the objects in experience are experienced spatiotemporally. Clearly, there can be no representations in space and time without the experience of objects in the world. In that respect, space and time as experienced are not independent of experience. But the fact that objects are necessarily experienced in such a way points to a faculty which is itself prior to experience. In other words, space and time as faculties are indeed independent of experience, or at least logically so. We have a capacity to represent objects in space and time, and this fact embraces both sides of the dichotomy: the capacity, i.e., the forms of intuition, would be nothing without their application to experience.

This position is compatible with what you say. To disagree with Kant you would have to go one step farther and argue not only that the intuitions of space and time apply to the objects of experience, i.e., that we would not know space and time without experience, but that they are actually derived entirely from experience. But that has its problems…

Is it conceivable that we first experience objects, and later learn to relate them in space? Surely, to experience a objects at all is to experience things outside ourselves, also as distinct but related. And try thinking of objects without space. You can’t do it. And yet space empty of objects is conceivable. This indicates an asymmetrical relation, with objects dependent on a prior form of intuition, but not vice versa. Thus space would seem to be an a priori condition of experience, over and above experience itself.

It is wrong to interpret Kant as saying that the a priori is before experience. A priori does not express chronological antecedence, but transcendental antecedence. In other words, it is about the conditions that make something possible, in this case experience.

It might also be important to point out that Kant is not doing psychology. Exactly how, in our development from birth, we come to experience objects, is left open by Kant. Evolutionary and developmental questions, or questions of nature and nurture, are not really very relevant to Kant’s project. Rather, he wants to establish just what must be the case for experience to be as it is, and never mind how this is empirically expressed in psychology, evolution and so on; he is interested in the ground of this empirical reality.

The Force and The Status of Transcendental Idealism

It’s helpful to see the remaining appearance and reality dichotomy, and its overwrought form in Kant, as a technical and negative outcome of the perceived necessity of transcendental philosophy; a retroactive effect of the effort to demarcate the domain of knowledge and ensure the objective validity of experience, which are his primary goals. Therefore one should not, perhaps, take the thing-in-itself so seriously and positively as does Schopenhauer, for example, as the realer than real, the underlying reality, the Platonic realm of which our empirical reality is but a poor reflection. It might seem that Kant is on board with this paradigm – and I believe that, in the end, he actually is – but his motivation is to escape from it to some degree. Here’s Henry Allison on Kant’s use of the thing-in-itself:

Kant was not trying to say what is unsayable, but merely to define the boundaries of what can be said or asked. In order to do so, however, he had to introduce the “metalanguage” of transcendental philosophy. Thus, such expressions as “things as they are in themselves,” “noumena,” the “transcendental object,” and their correlates are to be understood as technical terms within this metalanguage rather than as terms referring to transcendentally real entities. [Allison]

The most important point of transcendental idealism is that we cannot stand outside of our modes of experience and thought, even though we are, negatively, faced with the prospect of a thing-in-itself.

But we shouldn’t pretend there’s no idealism here at all, and I may already have stretched the point. Kant most definitely sees the reality we speak of as a mere play of representations, and is tied down to the notion of things-in-themselves. Much as he is aiming to big up empirical reality as objectively valid, he is still somewhat stuck behind the veil of perception, and that goes back to Descartes.

The empirically real is transcendentally ideal; the transcendentally real would be the thing-in-itself

BUT: in fact, appearances in space are not transcendentally ideal at all, because they cannot exist except in empirical reality. It is space that has ideality.

With the exception of space there is no other subjective representation, referring to something external, that could be called a priori objective. For from none of them can we derive synthetic propositions a priori, as we can from the intuition in space. Strictly speaking, therefore, they can claim no ideality at all, though they agree with the representation of space in this, that they belong only to the subjective nature of sensibility, for instance, of sight, of hearing, and feeling, through the sensations of colours, sounds, and heat. All these, however, being sensations only, and not intuitions, do not help us by themselves to know any object, least of all a priori. [B44]

And with that, Kant might be in an even stronger position from which to combat the charge of subjective idealism. No subjective representation except space (and time) is ideal.

The Ontological Denial [Gardner p99]

Two different claims can be identified in transcendental idealism.

One asserts that empirical reality is appearance conforming to the forms of intuition. In the last post I set out his arguments to this effect. From this point of view he’s concerned with…

... the fundamental constitution of sensible knowledge in general. [B58]

Through our sensibility … we do not know the constitution of things in themselves only indistinctly; we do not know it at all. If we withdraw our subjective constitution, the represented object, with the properties bestowed on it by sensible intuition, is nowhere to be found, and cannot possibly be found; for its form as appearance is determined by this subjective constitution. [B62]

The other claim is that space and time apply only in subjective experience. That is, Kant says we can know for sure that things-in-themselves do not exist in space and time.

It is, therefore, not merely possible or probable, but indubitably certain, that space and time, as the necessary conditions of all outer and inner experience, are merely subjective conditions of all our intuition, and that in relation to these conditions all objects are therefore mere appearances, and not given us as things in themselves which exist in this manner. [B66, my emphasis]

This seems to be saying that space and time must only be intuitions. But this is to say something about things-in-themselves, which Kant says is impossible on the very next line:

For this reason also, while much can be said a priori as regards the form of appearances, nothing whatsoever can be asserted of the thing in itself, which may underlie these appearances. [B66]

The denial is also explicit elsewhere in the aesthetic:

Space is nothing but the form of all appearances of outer sense … [B42]

... space is not a form of things that might belong to them in themselves … [B45]

Is Kant contradictng himself? We need to straighten this out.

First, he is not contradicting his claim that we can know nothing of things in themselves, because he is claiming only negative contentless knowledge, and not positive contentful knowledge. The latter is specifically what he says we cannot have of things in themselves.

But is he justified in the second claim? After all, even if space and time are the subjective forms of sensible intuition, maybe things in themselves exist in space and time anyway. Maybe we have these forms of intuition because underlying reality is structured spatiotemporally.

To answer this is to examine Kant’s arguments for TI in detail. Next post.

Questions

Are space and time innate mental faculties that we are born with? (This way of thinking is tempting, but Kant leaves it up in the air, because he is concerned with necessary conditions, i.e., what must be the case for us to experience objects in space and time. From this perspective the psychology is perhaps irrelevant.)

Essay Questions

In the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant attempts to prove that space and time are subjective conditions of human sensibility, not features of things in themselves. How does this argument work? Is it successful? (BLook, paper 1)
How does transcendental idealism differ from Berkeley’s idealism? How are they related?
In Kant, the primary qualities are given through intuition. How does he deal with the secondary qualities? What is their relation to the cognizing subject and the thing-in-itself? This is from “photographer”, here “The discussion of secondary qualities occurs in A28-29/B44-45, and A45/B62; but really comes to a head in B69-70. There’s some further discussion in A258/B313-314” B35 too? Secondary qualities are given to us in sensation, and primary qualities are supplied by us. Is this right? Is it a paradox?
How does TI combat scepticism?
What role does the transcendental aesthetic play in Kant’s overall argument?