Abstract
The Introduction presents the main systematic issue addressed in this book, namely, the relation between a representation and its object. The question is what we should understand by ‘an object’ to which representations are supposed to correspond and how can a representation immanent to consciousness relate or correspond to an object which must be considered as distinct from it. A related issue concerns the role of the notion of the thing-in-itself in relation to the possibility of experience. The unique features of Jacob Sigismund Beck’s Standpunctslehre are presented and the historical context within which it arose is laid down.
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- 1.
The English term ‘representation’, which stands for the German term ‘Vorstellung’ may be misleading. The dictionaries list ‘image’, ‘notion’, ‘perception’, ‘idea’ or simply ‘presentation’ as probable translations. The prefix ‘re’ added to the mere ‘presentation’ (a term which refers to the fact that some meaningful content is present to us) may express a relation to something other than the presentation itself – its object. The latter implication of the term ‘representation’ is certainly fitting and forms the core issue of this work. Kant himself uses the Latin term ‘repraesentatio’, which includes this very implication. However, the prefix ‘re’ may also reflect an intellectualist unwillingness to acknowledge that element, which is simply given or present to us without appealing to a spontaneous-creative activity of the understanding. Such line of thought may trigger talk about representations of representations, where such a talk is out of place. The English term ‘idea’ is used by some authors for the German term ‘Vorstellung’ but in the Kantian context this term may be misleading as well since Kant has his own technical use for the term ‘Idee’/‘idea’. Moreover, the use of the term ‘idea’ may be associated with the theory of ideas of Descartes and the English empiricists, a theory, which Kant rejects. Another term that could be used is ‘image’ but this term also has a technical meaning for Kant and it may be wrongly associated with imagination. The term ‘representation’ is the most commonly used in the literature and I will continue to use it throughout this work but the above qualifications should be borne in mind.
- 2.
In other words the merely legitimate concept (but not object) of a thing that is not a sensible object, has no role in Kant’s reformed metaphysics of nature (his doctrine of the conditions of possible experience) but merely in his reformed doctrine of traditional metaphysics’ special treatment of unique supersensible entities (entities, which even on traditional metaphysics’ view are non-experienceable) such as the concepts of God, freedom and the soul. The thing-in-itself (to be sharply distinguished from the transcendental object) has no relation whatsoever to the object of cognition but merely to that which cannot under any circumstances be an object of cognition.
- 3.
Jacob Sigismund Beck, Erläuternder Auszug aus den critischen Schriften des Herrn Prof. Kant, auf Anrathen desselben/Dritter Band, welcher den Standpunct darstellt, aus welchem die critische Philosophie zu beurtheilen ist/Einzig möglicher Standpunct aus welchem die critische Philosophie beurteilt werden muss. Riga: Hartknoch, 1796a, 157. Cf. also 13f., 172f. Reprinted in Aetas Kantiana. Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1968. [henceforth EmS]. English translation is taken from George di Giovanni (di Giovanni and Harris 2000, 229). I refer to this third volume of Beck’s commentary project as the Einzig möglicher Standpunct.
- 4.
The more modest, but far from trivial, task of explaining how experience is possible does include an element of the character of “proving that”. An account of the possibility of experience indeed turns mainly on proving, against Humean doubt, the existence and reference of a-priori concepts and their corresponding synthetic a-priori principles to objects. However, the Critique does not intend to prove that experience is real; rather it grants that we have experience and intends to prove something about its structure. Kant’s lectures on metaphysics include some very clear statements in this regard: “Must there not be certain synthetic a-priori judgments through which synthetic a-posteriori judgments are possible? And they would certainly be true, because they are the basis of experience, and experience is true.” (Mrongovius Metaphysics AA 29: 794). “We will show that they [synthetic a-priori principles] are certain because experience is certain and it rests on them” (AA 29: 799). “An a-priori proposition that precedes all experience is certain, for what is more certain than experience, and it is certain only to that extent” (AA 29: 805). All references to Kant’s works, other than the Critique of Pure Reason, are made with reference to the volume and page number in Kant’s gesammelte Schriften. eds. Preussische akademie der Wissenschaften, Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin and Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1902) [henceforth AA]. English translations of the lectures on metaphysics are taken from K. Ameriks and S. Naragon (Kant 1997). Kant’s refutation of Humean skepticism regarding a-priori concepts and principles is based on the non-questionable assumption that we indeed have experience of objects, which we further regard as subjected to various synthetic a-posteriori principles (cf. the above citations). Kant here has in mind primarily empirical science. The structure of Kant’s proof is that of exposing the inevitable conditions of such experience and showing that they consist in precisely those a-priori concepts and principles in question. Even if this argument is circular it is nevertheless not a vicious, one. This is so since the argument is not intended as a justification of experience but merely as explanation of its character and any explanation must presuppose its subject matter. On the issue of whether Kant intends to justify or merely explain experience my reading is supported by Graham Bird’s modest exposition of Kant’s intentions (Bird 2006). Michael N. Forster also argues that Kant’s argument assumes that we have experience of such-and-such type, a claim, which Kant believes the skeptic is also bound to accept (Forster 2008, 41f.). Forster, nevertheless, thinks that this assumption is vulnerable (Forster 2008, 76–82). By contrast I think that as long as the aim of Kant’s argument is to explain, rather than to justify, objective law-governed, experience, then the assumption, not merely of subjective, but also of in some sense objective, experience, is unquestionable. Through this assumption we merely acknowledge that which is in need of explanation. I shall return to these issues in my comparison between Beck’s and Fichte’s views and in my reconstruction of Kant’s refutation of idealism in Part IV, Sects. 12.1.2 and 12.2.4 respectively.
- 5.
Reinhold’s Elemenratphilosophie inverts the entire question of Kant’s Critique. In place of expounding and developing the characteristics of cognition out of its own inherent principles (i.e., the task of explaining how cognition operates), the task of the transcendental reflection according to Reinhold becomes one of furnishing a link between the whole of cognition and the absolute being (justifying or proving that cognition is related to the thing-in-itself), (Cassirer 1999, IV:68). The skeptical attacks of Jacobi, Aenesidemus and the entire neo-Humean school are also grounded in the inability of any kind of philosophy to demonstrate the connection between representations and things-in-themselves, a task, which they took to be the main issue. Their radical skepticism thus shows that they – just like the dogmatists against which they argued – took the above question to be meaningful and relevant. Reinhold’s parallel attempt to derive certain aspects of cognition out of a single, self-evident, principle is likewise contrary to Kant’s way of thinking, which does not follow a Leibnizean style of logical deduction but a transcendental deduction which is merely an attempt to expose the presuppositions of something given – experience.
- 6.
Cf. note 3 above.
- 7.
Jacob Sigismund Beck, Grundriß der critischen Philosophie. Halle: Renger, 1796b. Reprinted in Aetas Kantiana. Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1970. [henceforth Grundriß]
- 8.
- 9.
Similar view is held by Hanslmeier (1971, 702) and von Prantl (1875, 214). Hanslmeier argues that Beck’s rejection of the thing-in-itself resulted in subjective idealism due to his overemphasis on the productive functions of the understanding. Von Prantl similarly argues that Beck relapsed into Berkeleyanism. The claim that Beck’s interpretation brings Kant’s position closer to Berkeley is repeated by Wilhelm Stieda (1939, 20).
- 10.
- 11.
According to de Vleeschauwer (1962, 166) Beck is classed with the Kantian “apostates” who in “the pursuit of formal correction […] were unable to avoid making certain doctrinal corrections”. L. W. Beck (1967, 301) classes J. S. Beck with the “semi-Kantians”, “who were forced by difficulties in Kant’s position to criticize, reconstruct, and ultimately to some extent to transcend it”. In a book based on the author’s thesis, Beck is negatively presented with very little discussion. It is said that Beck’s doctrine is “a model-case of a usurpation of a concept” and that his idea of the Kantian ‘critique’ had nothing to do with the latter (Röttgers 1975, 78ff.).
- 12.
Erdmann dedicates a relatively large space for a presentation of Beck’s doctrine; however, he suffices with a mere description of Beck’s work and does not engage himself with a wider-scale evaluation of Beck’s doctrine.
- 13.
Friedrich Bouterwek (1766–1828) studied philosophy in Göttingen under Johann Georg Heinrich Feder. He was a colleague and friend of Beck who made efforts to help the former in securing a teaching post. A letter from Beck to Bouterwek dealing with these issues is reprinted by Stieda (1939, 33f.).
- 14.
- 15.
Pötschel additionally argues that Beck should be seen as a necessary phase in the development of Kantian philosophy leading up to Schelling (Pötschel 1910, 7f.). An interesting link between on the one hand Beck and on the other hand Fries and Schopenhauer, is argued by Dilthey (1889, 649). Such a connection seems to me to be fruitful for further investigation; however, I cannot pursue this path within the scope of this current work.
- 16.
The English translation of Kroner is taken from Wallner (1979, 8).
- 17.
There is one work (Lodovici 1932) not mentioned here, since, due to language limitations, it was inaccessible to me.
- 18.
This work was simultaneously published as a dissertation under the title “Das ursprüngliche Vorstellen bei Jakob Sigismund Beck. Versuch einer kritischen Darstellung.” PhD diss., Universität Mainz, 1976.
- 19.
Cf. also in an article based upon her dissertation in which the issue of the relation between a representation and its object arises within Wallner’s introduction of Beck’s doctrine only in a footnote, (Wallner 1984, 297n10). A presentation of Beck’s Standpunctslehre which was undoubtedly inspired by Wallner’s research is given by George di Giovanni who acted as the supervisor of Wallner’s doctorate project (di Giovanni 2000, 36–42).
- 20.
In my view Beck’s Standpunctslehre is essentially opposed to the foundationalism of Reinhold and Fichte. I therefore side with Ingrid Wallner when she argues that “Beck’s epistemological enterprise cannot be correctly understood if it is interpreted as an effort to build a deductive system on the basis of a first principle from which other principles are supposed to ‘follow’, being entailed in a process of inferential reasoning.” (Wallner 1979, 20). While Meyer does not present Beck as a foundationalist, he nevertheless fails to emphasize the distinct character of Beck’s first principle.
- 21.
A major difficulty with Wallner’s discussion of Beck’s Standpunctslehre derives from embarking on an evaluation of Beck’s doctrine without preceding this evaluation with a detailed exposition of the doctrine itself. It follows that many of Wallner’s formulations of Beck’s ideas may seem unintelligible to a reader who is not already familiar with Beck’s thought. This is evident not only in the introduction to her dissertation but even within the text itself. Immediately in the opening chapters of her work, Wallner cites Beck’s commentary on the Critique of Pure Reason, contained in the fourth and last part of Beck’s Einzig möglicher Standpunct. Thereby, Wallner appeals to various distinctions used by Beck, which only make sense when construed on the background of the wider context of Beck’s detailed exposition of his entire doctrine in the second and main part of his Einzig möglicher Standpunct.
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Nitzan, L. (2014). Introduction. In: Jacob Sigismund Beck’s Standpunctslehre and the Kantian Thing-in-itself Debate. Studies in German Idealism, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05984-6_1
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