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Notes
- 1.
Cf. also Chap. 8 above. In another place Beck argues that the transcendental deduction of space is actually one and the same as the transcendental deduction of the pure concept of magnitude (EmS, 435).
- 2.
Cf. also: “In contrast, the reader who is truly familiar with the transcendental standpoint of the category knows that the intuition is the original synthesis of the homogeneous, and therefore that it is one and the same as the category of magnitude (as original employment of the understanding)” (EmS, 367) and similarly: “Empirical intuition is nothing other than original employment of the understanding in the category of reality, namely, the original synthesis of the homogeneous which proceeds from the whole of the sensation to the parts (intensive magnitude).” (EmS, 370). The translation of the above passages is my own. For a view similar to mine regarding Beck’s identification of the category with a schema and with an image, cf. George di Giovanni’s notes to his translation of the core parts of Beck’s Einzig möglicher Standpunct (di Giovanni and Harris 2000, 247n24, 248n26). Cf. as well, di Giovanni’s exposition of Beck in his introductory essay (di Giovanni 2000, 39). I nevertheless disagree with di Giovanni’s conclusion that Beck’s identification of the category with its schema reinforces immanentism. The illegitimacy of Beck’s interpretation of Kant regarding the merging of sensibility and understanding, concept and intuition, was already recognized in an early review of the three volumes of Beck’s work, published anonymously in 1796 in the Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung. The review is concise, mainly descriptive and generally sympathetic of Beck’s views except for the reviewer’s dissatisfaction with what he thinks is Beck’s overly confident or even arrogant tone. The reviewer was Johann Benjamin Erhard, a physician and philosopher of the Kantian circle. Erhard reveals himself to be the reviewer of Beck’s work in a letter to Kant dated January 16, 1797. In this letter, after expressing his opinion that “It really is a pity that Fichte loses himself in nonsense so much, just to make himself look deeply profound”, Erhard says: “Mr. Beck too seems to have gone overboard in the third part of his abstract. I could not abstain from reprimanding him, in the review, for his arrogance, as I did not spare Schelling for his nonsense”. (AA 12: 144). The reviewer was wrongly identified by Adickes as Pörschke (Adickes 1970, 172). Beck was similarly criticized by Reinhold and Schelling for failing to distinguish sensibility from the understanding, cf. Sect. 12.1.1 below. Edmund Heller regards Beck’s theory of original representing as criticism of Kant’s concept of the concept. Heller argues that contrary to the general character of the concept according to Kant, Beck’s concept of the concept is individual in character (Heller 1993, 83).
- 3.
The accusation was put to Beck by Johann Schultz as is evident from Beck’s letter to Kant June 20, 1797 (AA 12: 165f.). Kant’s letter to Beck, which included Schultz’s criticism, is not extant.
- 4.
Ingrid M. Wallner, as well, argues that “Beck’s functional adaptation […] involves the inclusion of space and time as categorical adaptations of the understanding” (Wallner 1979, 29; Cf. also Wallner 1984, 303). I think that Wallner is lead to this conclusion by Beck’s use of terms and more importantly by the fact that Beck regards time and space as part of a spontaneous activity (Wallner 1979, 55; Wallner 1984, 305). On the contrary, I think that Beck retains a distinction between sensibility and understanding in terms of his distinction between original and discursive representing. However, he infuses spontaneity into the original representing which he understands as part of sense perception.
- 5.
This view is reaffirmed by a multitude of passages from Beck’s commentary on Kant’s first Critique in the fourth part of his Einzig möglicher Standpunct.
- 6.
“No one would say that the category, e.g., causality, could also be intuited through the senses and is contained in the appearance” (KrV, A137f./B176f.).
- 7.
The difficulties with Beck’s exposition of the act of positing itself and its role within the doctrine of objectivity shall be discussed in Sect. 12.2.6. Here I only want to emphasize the difficulties that result from Beck’s perceptual view of this principle.
- 8.
The German term ‘Gegenstand’ (standing in front of or over-against) makes this aspect of the act of positing very explicit.
- 9.
This internal tension is exploited in a criticism of Beck by Heller (1993, 85).
- 10.
I have already mentioned this transition in Sect. 2.2.1 above.
- 11.
The translation of all texts from this part of Beck’s book is my own (these sections were not included in di Giovanni’s translation).
- 12.
For Beck’s complaint against the method of the Critique, which presents the categories initially as mere concepts cf. also EmS, 425, 440, 462f., 490.
- 13.
Di Giovanni (di Giovanni and Harris 2000, 248n26) as well notes that for Beck the problem of the schematism and in general the issue of the application of the understanding to intuitions is a non-existent problem.
- 14.
Cf. also below on the same page: “Thus this figurative synthesis is distinguished from the mere intellectual [synthesis], precisely in that it [the figurative synthesis] pertains to the original-synthetic unity of consciousness, while the other [the intellectual synthesis] pertains to the analytical unity.”
- 15.
Criticism of this spirit is also included in an early review of Beck’s work by Johann Benjamin Erhard. Erhard (1796, 511f.) argues that “Space as the form of intuition must already be the basis of the space of the geometer; and any explanation of the original space [as used by the geometer] cannot contain anything conceivable, because it already presupposes space.” The English translation is my own. Erhard wrongly accuses Beck that it follows from his doctrine that space and time are the products of the original representing. Beck, as we discussed above, explicitly distinguishes the act of original representing itself – to which time and space belong – from the synthetic unity of consciousness, which is the result of the application of the original representing in any concrete case. Nevertheless, Erhard is correct to point out that time and space, as well as the categories, perform the role of conditions for the possibility of experience, an issue which Beck fails to take into consideration. In a similar fashion, Beck was accused by another author to have psychologized the account of representation (Pötschel 1910, 22).
- 16.
Discussed above in Chap. 6. Cf. also Beck’s claim that the categories are not concepts but functions (EmS, 426).
- 17.
Cassirer similarly argues that Beck reconstructs Kant’s logical intention in psychological language (Cassirer 1999, IV: 77).
- 18.
The issue is most clearly explained in the A-Deduction of the categories (KrV, A103-110).
- 19.
Some significance could also be attached to the fact the Beck speaks of the original-synthetic unity of consciousness (Bewußtsein), while Kant refers to the original-synthetic unity of the apperception. On the one hand, apperception is the Latin term for consciousness and it seems that Kant uses the two terms quite interchangeably. Nevertheless, apperception, in its Leibnizean context from which Kant had borrowed it, points to something potential while consciousness implies an actual cognitive state. This line of thought is, however, doubtful.
- 20.
For Beck’s discussion of the relation between the synthetic and the analytic unity of consciousness, cf. Chap. 9 above. Cf. also the paragraph in which Beck cites Kant’s footnote in KrV, B133f. (EmS, 441ff.). While Kant refers to the synthetic unity of consciousness as a precondition for the possibility of an analytical unity, Beck refers to the synthetic unity as a concrete cognitive state from which we lift characteristics when we construct the analytical unity of the concept. For Kant the very possibility of employing general properties, which by definition can be applied to many different things, each of which has other properties besides the one here considered, presupposes a synthetic unity. The assumption of an original synthetic unity, to which all properties could be referred, is requisite for understanding of the possibility of operating with general properties. Beck’s commentary completely overlooks Kant’s emphasis on a possible synthetic unity (EmS, 450f.).
- 21.
See Kant’s discussion of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason where Kant refers to the “I think” as solely being consciousness of myself as thinking and he refers to the categories as “modes of self-consciousness of myself in thinking”. (KrV, B406f.). Cf. also the way Kant understood the categories in the Inaugural Dissertation influenced by his reading of Leibniz’s New Essays, discussed above in Sect. 2.2.1.
- 22.
Cf. Beck’s official definition of the category of necessity (EmS, 166) and of its corresponding principle (193f.). Cf. also the following paragraph: “Necessity always concerns cognition out of concepts” (EmS, 361), and: “Regarding necessity we thus claim that it pertains to a cognition insofar as it is thought of as a conclusion in a logical derivation […]” (EmS, 473). The English translation is my own.
- 23.
Cf. above our discussion of Beck’s explanation of the distinction between a-priori and a-posteriori concepts (Chap. 9). The mark of a-priori concepts is that they are based immediately on the original representing rather than on its product in any concrete case.
- 24.
Refer to our discussion in the previous section of Beck’s attempt to ground the relation of a representation to its object in an original act of positing and the difficulties that result from Beck’s perceptual view of this act.
- 25.
Although Beck does seek to ground cognition’s claim for objectivity, nevertheless, his avoidance of a logical derivation of this principle and his reliance on the factuality of original representing, distinguishes him from his contemporaries. This feature of his doctrine points to his moderated appeal to justification and a relative tendency to suffice with explanation of the possibility of experience.
- 26.
I take this term from Kuehn (2001, 185).
- 27.
For the distinction between the universality and abstraction of concepts in contrast with the concreteness of intuitions cf. also MSI, §10 (AA 02: 396f.).
- 28.
The same ideas are repeated in the Anticipations of Perception (KrV, A169f./B211f.), as well as in the first two Antinomies (KrV, A426-433/B454-471).
- 29.
Despite the differences in the concept of an object, the Inaugural Dissertation and the Critique both share the basic view of the opposition between the synthesis of apprehension and objective representation.
- 30.
Cf. also Beck’s letter to Kant, June 20, 1797 (AA 12: 169): “No one, of all the friends of the critical philosophy, has stressed the distinction between sensibility and understanding more than I have. I do it under the expression: a concept has sense and meaning only to the extent that the original activity of the understanding in the categories lies at its basis – which in fact is the same as your contention that the categories have application only to what is directly experienced […]”
- 31.
Kanizsa recognizes that a strict separation between “pure” perception and “pure” thought is impossible. Nevertheless, the recognition that distinctions are hard to make and that a “pure” or “strict” separation is impossible should not deter us from attempting to explain a wide variety of situations in which it is quite clear that perception and thought do not form one continuum. Kanizsa discusses in details a large group of so-called optical “illusions” in which we can observe that the rules of sense perception and its modes of organization stand in bold opposition to the rules and modes of organization that reside in thinking. The term ‘illusion’ is very misleading; it expresses the prejudice of thinking against the inherent rules of our sense perception in cases in which the outcomes of the two faculties do no coincide. However, the appeal to the term ‘illusion’ clarifies that there is indeed some opposition between two distinct points of view.
- 32.
Cf. also Vaihinger’s discussion of simple elements as the fiction of the atom (1935, 70ff.).
- 33.
On Kuhn’s work and its relevance to Kant’s critical idealism, cf. Sect. 12.2.1.
- 34.
In all of the below examples the distinction between the manifold and the synthesis is intimately tied to the distinction between givenness and production. At this time I only discuss the former aspect of the dichotomy.
- 35.
For similar statements cf. also Kant’s letter to Beck July 3, 1792 (AA 11: 347f.), and Kant’s letter to Beck October 16/17, 1792 (AA 11: 376).
- 36.
Kant uses the German term ‘Zusammenfassung’, which the Guyer and Wood, the translators of the Cambridge Edition chose to express by the English term ‘comprehension’ but I think would be better expressed by the term ‘combination’.
- 37.
Beck’s view of sense-perception as having an intrinsic form of organization rather than being a bare manifold is mostly evident in his view of space as a connected manifold (verbundene Mannigfaltiges) (EmS, 142). Cf. also: “For we think of time and space as something connected” (EmS, 445), and: “It [the concept of space] is the concept of a connected manifold (mannigfaltigen zusammen Gesetzten) […]” (EmS, 447f.). English translation of these passages is my own.
- 38.
It should be noted that even the simple notions of Euclidean geometry are already removed from immediate sense-perception. For example the Euclidean notion of an abstract point, which has no area, or that of a line, which has no width, can hardly be represented. It is also worth noting that in his very first published work, Kant did acknowledge the possibility of space with more than three dimensions (cf. Sect. 2.1). Nevertheless, Kant’s mature philosophy leaves no room for a real possibility (as opposed to a mere logical one) of such an option. Moreover, Kant never developed these early ideas any further.
- 39.
For a more detailed discussion of some of these examples, cf. Toulmin (1961, 44–61).
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Nitzan, L. (2014). The Relation Between Sensibility and the Understanding. 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_11
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