Intuitions/objects being “subject” to the categories
Apologies to those who check in here once in a while. I’ve been very busy over the past year, and this blog just could not be a priority (although there were a few discussions in comments to past posts).
Lately I have been struggling with the Transcendental Deduction again. One frustration that I have with commentary on the Deduction is the claim that Kant wants to show that intuitions or objects are (perhaps necessarily) “subject to the categories.” This horrible locution is quite ambiguous. It could mean that intuitions/objects are fit to be subjected to the categories (they are “subject” to the categories in a way similar to the way in which citizens are “subject” to the state’s laws). But it could also mean that intuitions/objects are simply subsumed under the categories, regardless of the appropriateness of this activity (intuitions/objects would be “subject” to the categories as a punching bag is “subject” to blows). These are very different claims, and there are passages suggesting that either goal is Kant’s.
James Van Cleve (Problems from Kant, 1999) makes a similar point, focusing the expressions “we must apply categories” and “categories must apply”:
Even if Kant could show that some of his categories must be employed in any judgment we make (and that all of them must be employed on some occasion or other), this would not be enough for his purposes. For that result in conjunction with the rest of the Transcendental Deduction would yield no conclusion stronger than this: all my representations are connected in judgments that use Kant’s categories. But Kant wants to show that the categories are objectively valid—that they actually apply to objects of experience. To reach this conclusion he needs the further premise that any categories used in judging are actually exemplified by the items judged about. …
I fear that some may have overlooked this obvious point because of the easy verbal slide from “we must apply categories” to “categories must apply.” One may slip without noticing it from one to the other, but between the two there is no small distance (89).
This seems to me to be exactly right. Writers on Kant ought to be careful about making this slide. They also ought to be more careful about saying that intuitions or objects are “subject” to the categories.
posted by Andrew Roche @ 6/24/2007 01:16:00 PM
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Professional Kantian I am not, but I think the Deduction holds if (and only if?) one assumes that the arguments for the synthetic a priori hold, and thus the categories (being syn. AP, right) then are objective: I don't see how you introduce objectivity later on. Tho' I haven't read Ded. or 1st Crit. in some time, the Intuitions seem more like filtered perceptions, sensibility, even sense data. (Though mathematical/logical intuitions obviously of a different sort).
However I would suggest that traditional a priori views--even synthetic AP cannot be ultimately defended, unless given a psychological or cognitive reading (similar to say Chomsky's "innateness" which he argues is a biological endowment for language, more or less). I know enough about Kantians to realize they hate psychological readings of the 1st critique. Any other type of interpretation, however, seems rather platonic if not theological. That said, empiricism ala Locke--or even radicalized via Quine-- presents all sorts of difficulties (for one, suggesting that the categories derive (somehow) from sense/experience sort of undermines the entire Kantian project), but less difficulties than a rationalist or platonic view presents.....
Sorry your comment took a while to post. Blogger no longer tells me when a comment has been submitted.
A basic misunderstanding of the Categories is that they are classes or divisions. Kant's Categories are predicates of objects in general. "Category" is Greek for "predicate" or "that which can be asserted about something." They are the properties which can be said to belong to any object, not a specific object. As such, they are related to language. They do not make experience of particular objects possible. As Schopenhauer noted, non-human animals experience objects without "applying" any Categories.
When that stingray experienced the presence of Steve Irwin, was it applying Categories? Categories are concepts of predicates that can be attributed to an object in general.
Noam, a few points in response.
First, I'm not sure where you are coming from. Is this a friendly addition to my post or are you disagreeing?
Second, you write:
A basic misunderstanding of the Categories is that they are classes or divisions. Kant's Categories are predicates of objects in general.
Strictly speaking, the categories are pretty plainly not classes or divisions. They are concepts. This is consistent with saying that they represent classes. But that is another point. I gather that it is a point with which you disagree. I've never really considered whether the categories represent classes. Perhaps you are right that it is a mistake to talk this way. Anyway, what turns on this? You seem to think that much confusion rests on the assumption that the categories represent classes.
Third, you write:
They do not make experience of particular objects possible. As Schopenhauer noted, non-human animals experience objects without "applying" any Categories.
Here, too, I'm not entirely sure what your point is. There is a fair amount of textual evidence that Kant does think that the categories in some way or other make experience possible. I can't tell whether you agree but think that it is a mistake to read Kant as saying that they do not make experiences of particular objects possible. But again, I'm not sure what would turn on such a distinction. If the categories make the experience of objects possible in general then they make the experience of particular objects possible.
Finally, you also talk about animals. I am doubtful that it is helpful to do so since what Kant thought about the experiences of animals is contentious. I agree with you that animals experience objects. But Kant might not. For instance--to suggest just one possibility--for Kant, experience is something more than mere perception, and he might say that animals have mere perceptions but not experiences. Anyway, this is a complicated issue, and I can't address it properly here. You might take a look at Steven Naragon's "Kant on Descartes and the Brutes" (Kant-Studien, 1990), which among other things produces passages in which Kant talks about animals.
Your blog called attention to the phrase that "intuitions or objects are subject to the categories." I tried to reply by claiming that the Kantian Categories, as well as the Aristotelian Categories, are not classes, divisions, or rubrics. They are not concepts that represent classes. Categories are concepts that can be said, in a spoken or written categorical proposition, to belong to any object. They are linguistic.
Words become ambiguous when they designate more than one concept. The word "category" has become ambiguous. It originally meant "predicate." The Categories are the predicates that can be attributed to all objects, or, to objects in general.
In A81, Kant equated the word "category" with the word "predicament." This is yet another example of ambiguity. We are accustomed to thinking that "predicament" means "an unpleasant situation." Its original meaning is "predicate." As predicates of general, not particular, objects, Categories are the attributes of any and all objects. We know this before we experience any particular, specific objects. Therefore, they give us a priori knowledge of objects. We know that any and all objects can be said to have unity, plurality, reality, limitation, possibility, actuality, etc. We know that any and all objects in general are effects of some previous cause, and so forth.
Kant wrote that they are "pure concepts of understanding applying a priori to objects of intuition in general" (A79)" Even though Categories, as concepts, fundamentally relate to intuition or perception, they are directly connected only to discursive thought.
"Thinking" is another ambiguous word. Kant confused everyone because he did not clearly distinguish between thinking as intuitive perception and thinking as the discursive use of language to communicate concepts through words. Sometimes he wrote as though the Categories are needed in order for a thinker to intuitively perceive objects in the world. This is plainly false. A polyp or a flea can perceive an external object. At other times, he claimed that the Categories are needed when speaking or "thinking" about objects. They are definitely needed for this purpose because a specific object, as an instance of an object in general, must possess the Categories as possible predicates or it could not be thought of or spoken of as an object.
Please be careful when referring to "intuitions/objects" or "intuitions or objects." After reading Kant and Berkeley, I have learned that intuitions are ideas in my head and objects are things outside of my head. I experience objects only when they appear as intuitions or perceptions.
I agree that one must be careful. That is why I left open what exactly is subsumed under concepts. I also agree that the objects of experience are not the same as our intuitions of objects (although some think that Kant's idealism implies that objects are intuitions). Granting all of this, however, I think that there is a perfectly acceptable sense in which both are subsumed under concepts in experience--although the nature of the subsumption will typically differ for each.
Objects are intuitions (perceptions) in the following sense. Anything that is said to be an object, or is spoken of as an object, or is thought to be an object, is actually an intuition (perception). Only intuitions (perceptions) exist for a knowing and observing subject. Objects exist only in so far as they are appearances, intuitions, and perceptions. However, objects can be thought and spoken of as being different from intuitions. Thought and speech, in that case, would only consist of empty concepts with no relation to perceptual experience.
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