Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Kant on Apriority, Syntheticity, and Judgments

  • Chapter
Phenomenology on Kant, German Idealism, Hermeneutics and Logic

Part of the book series: Contributions to Phenomenology ((CTPH,volume 39))

Abstract

Of the various passages revised or completely rewritten for the Critique of Pure Reason’s second (1787) edition, scholars have focused primarily on the Deduction, the Refutation of Idealism, the Paralogisms, the Preface, and to a lesser extent on the Aesthetic. The Introduction too underwent a revision — it nearly doubled in length — but relatively little attention has been paid to the question of why Kant thought this revision advisable. This is perhaps understandable: the alteration consists almost entirely of an expansion of the treatment of synthetic a priori knowledge, for the most part simply taken over (frequently word-for-word) from the 1783 Prolegomena. And although a great deal of the Prolegomena is devoted to Kant’s indignant rejection of the Garve-Feder review of the 1781 Critique, the passages adopted for the B-Introduction seem independent of this reaction.1

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. See the editor’s introduction to Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können, ed. Karl Vorländer (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1976), vii–xxii. For the latest (and most convincing) version of the page-misplacement hypothesis (“Blattversetzungshypothese”, xxxvii–xl) see P. Hoyningen-Huene, “Eine weitere Textverschiebungshypothese zu Kants Prolegomena (und zur 2. Auflage der KrV)” Kant-Studien 89 (1998), 84–9. (As customary, references to the Critique of Pure Reason [KdrV] cite the pagination of the first and second (A and B) original editions; all other references to Kant’s work are by volume, page (and where necessary, line) of the Prussian Academy edition [Ak] of Kant’s complete works, preceded by an abbreviation of the work in question: KdpV for Critique of Practical Reason, KdU for Critique of Judgment, Proleg. for Prolegomena, etc.)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Proleg., Ak.IV.261. See also Letter to Herz, 11 May 1781 (Ak X268–70), where Kant grants he will at first have “very few readers” and hopes to provide “popularity” later.

    Google Scholar 

  3. The Introduction in A notes the apriority of mathematics, but only implies that it is synthetic; the first place I find this actually stated is A39. A46–49 gives an explication of the synthetic a priori nature of mathematics, but this scarcely constitutes a defense of this claim. Kant’s failure to realize that the claim needed an explicit defense is perhaps explained by the fact that he had become so accustomed to viewing mathematics as synthetic for over 15 years (cf. “Deutlichkeit,” Ak 11.276 et passim; “Vorlesungen 1765–66,” Ak II.308f.) that by 1781 it seemed obvious to him.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Hume and Leibniz, e.g., both understood mathematics to be analytic, in the received sense of that term.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Lewis W. Beck, “Kant’s Theory of Definition,” in Robert Paul Wolff, ed, Kant. A Collection of Critical Essays (Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1968), 23–36 (see also “Analytic and Synthetic Judgments Before Kant”, in Beck, Essays on Kant and Hume (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1978), 80–100.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Henry E. Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism [KTI] (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1983), 73 (and Chapter 4 generally).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologia 1.2.2. See also Suarez, Metaphysicarum disputationum 29.3.1–2 for a reference to these two types of proof as a priori and a posteriori.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Antoine Arnauld, La Logique, ou l’ Art de Penser, 1662, Pt. IV, §1. English: The Art of Thinking. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964, 301f.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Logik, Ak..IX. 22f.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Kant differentiates objective from subjective origins of cognitions; the first divide into rational or empirical, the second into rational or historical. The point apparently is to allow for the possibility of someone knowing, e.g., that the interior angles of a triangle are equivalent to two right angles, not because he followed the proof himself, but because he was told it and took it on authority. Then the cognition in question is objectively rational, but subjectively “historical.” See Logik, Ak. IX. 22. The use of “historical” here follows Meyer, §§17–18, Ak. XVI.93–94.

    Google Scholar 

  11. KdrV, A1. Cf B2f. Kant goes onto distinguish the relative from the absolute a priori, and restrict the discussion to the latter.

    Google Scholar 

  12. The sense of necessity and universality of Kant’s a priori concepts and intuitions is less straightforward than that of the cognitions, and can be questioned in individual cases; but I think it is fair to say that if these concepts and intuitions are considered, not individually, but as a system, this system is universal and necessary with respect to the system of empirical objects. Further pursuit of this theme is however beyond the scope of this treatment

    Google Scholar 

  13. E.g. KdrV, A56/B80f: a priori employment, cognition, determination, relatioa

    Google Scholar 

  14. Logik, Ak. IX.22f.

    Google Scholar 

  15. This claim might seem to run afoul of the a priori nature of mathematics: the properties of a triangle are a priori, but not all empirical objects are triangular. If we take the propositions of mathematics as hypothetical, however, i. e. “for all empirical objects: if they are triangular, then they have these properties…”, the problem disappears. Cf. KdrV, A56/B80f.

    Google Scholar 

  16. KdrV, A6f./B10.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Logik, §36, Ak. IX 111. Cf. R3928, Ak. XVII.350.2.

    Google Scholar 

  18. The term predicate has two senses here. In a judgment such as “All A is B,” the concept B serves as the predicate for this particular judgment, the concept A as the subject; but A is also a predicate of the objects falling under it, but in a wider sense, i. e. considered without reference to any particular judgment Where the possibility of confusion obtains, I will refer to the former sense as the logical predicate.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Allison (AT/, 73–5) grants that “containment” and ‘thought through identity” are equivalent, but considers “explicative/ampliative” to constitute a second version of the distinction I think, on the contrary, the latter is formally equivalent to the first two, but whereas the first two make no reference to concepts with respect to their origin and development, there is a hint of this in the latter.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Beck, “Can Kant’s Synthetic Judgments be Made Analytic?” in Wolff, op.cit, 3–22 (see esp. 6–9).

    Google Scholar 

  21. KTI, 74.

    Google Scholar 

  22. KdrV, A55f/B79f Cf also A54/B78, A76/B102, etc.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Ibid.

    Google Scholar 

  24. The three main sources for Kant’s views on general logic all derive from the courses he gave on the subject from 1755 to around 1796 (see Ak. XXIV.955). These are: Logik, i. e. Immanuel Kant’s Logik (Ak. DC1–.150), compiled by G. B. Jäsche in 1800 from Kant’s lecture notes; these notes (Reflexionen) themselves, as contained in Ak. XVI; and student notes from the lectures, contained in Ak. XXIV/1 and XXIV/2.

    Google Scholar 

  25. See Logik, Ak. IX.34, and the student notes on Kant’s logic lectures, Ak. XXIV., 40, 340, 510, 565, 701, 752, 805; cf Meyer, Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre (the text Kant used in his logic lectures), §123, Ak. XVI.316 (also §10,.76).

    Google Scholar 

  26. E.g., KdrV, A19f/B33f; A320/B376f; Logik §1, Ak.IX.92.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Letter to J. S. Beck of Dec. 4, 1792, Ak.. XI.395.29. This passage agrees with KdrV, A34/B50 and A50/B74, where a representation is seen as a determination of the mind Cf also KdrV, A98f, and R1676, Ak. XVT.76ff. In Meyer, a representation “behaves like a picture,” a view which Kant criticizes (in R1676) as requiring a mental entity to be itself spatial in order to stand for (refer to, represent) something spatial. I ignore here the interesting questions of unconscious representations (Ak. VIII.217, XXIX 17.24) and representations in animals (see Ak. V.464n., VII.395f, XI.52, XI.345, XV. 166, XXVIII.275f).

    Google Scholar 

  28. There is a well-known ambiguity in the terms “representation,” “intuition”, and related terms. An intuition can be 1. a mental entity referring to some other singular thing, 2. the process of constituting this reference, or 3. the something else referred to; and the type-token distinction can be applied to at least some of these. “Representation” has the same ambiguities (though #3 is rare). In this context, representations and intuitions are mental entities, types rather than tokens (i. e., I have the same representation or concept of heaviness on two occasions). Where another sense is intended I will try to indicate it

    Google Scholar 

  29. Logik, Ak. IX.91; cf KdrV, A320/B376f; Logik, IX.64f This first characterization illustrates the difference between general and transcendental logic, and the difficulty involved in keeping them separate. The claim that “concept” is a species of “representation” stands in prima facie conflict with passages where Kant holds that a representation is something given which must undergo a kind of transformation in order to become a concept (e.g., KdrV, A76/B102; Logik, Ak IX.33f.,.94; R2854, R2876, Ak. XVI.547,.555f; LogWienXXIV.907.17). In the Logic (Ak. K.94), general logic is not allowed to address the question of how representations arise, but is supposed to deal only with the production of concepts out of representations, however these latter may have arisen It would seem that the conflict between species and transformation cannot be removed by distinguishing general and transcendental logic.

    Google Scholar 

  30. KdrV, A189/B234f.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Logik, IX. 91.17; cf. VorlLogXXIV/1.257.4; /2.567.29; /2.655.37; /2.908.30.

    Google Scholar 

  32. KdrV, A19/B33, A68f./B93f, etc.

    Google Scholar 

  33. The treatment of determination below gives a good example of the accrual of background conceptual content to an intuition

    Google Scholar 

  34. Logik, Ak. IX.97; cf LogDoh, Ak. XXIV.754f; LogWien, Ak. XXIV.911. Since any allegedly lowest species is for Kant still a concept and therefore still a universal, it is in principle applicable to an indefinite number of different objects, the differences among which can always be used to establish a further sub-concept.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Beck, “Kant’s Theory of Definition”, in Wolff; op. cit, 23–36.

    Google Scholar 

  36. KdrV, A727ff./B755ff.; cf R3000, Ak. XVI.609; LogPhil, Ak. XXIV.457ff, LogBlom, Ak. XXIV.268f; LogPöl, Ak. XXIV.571f; LogBus, Ak. XXIV.657; LogDoh, Ak. XXIV.757; LogWien, Ak. XXIV.915,.918.

    Google Scholar 

  37. See the passages on definition in the Logic, §§99–107 (Ak. DC 140–145), and the corresponding sections in Ak. XXIV cited above.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Logik, §99, Ak. IX. 140.23; R2927, Ak XVI.578; LogBlom, Ak. XXIV.264.35. Cf. Ak XX.409.5.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Leibniz, G. W., Philosophical Papers and Letters (ed and tr. by Leroy E. Loemker), Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1956, rpt Dordrecht: D Reidel, 1969, 320, also 183, 291–5, 625f, 646. Cf. Allison, “The Originality of Kant’s Distinction between Analytic and Synthetic Judgments,” in Richard Kennington, ed, The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1985), 15–38; Beck, “Analytic and Synthetic Judgments before Kant,” op. cit.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Logik, Ak. IX.63. Cf. KdrV, A764f/B792f; Logik, Ak. IX.63, 141f; LogWien, Ak. XXIV.915.14; R2959, Ak. XVI.587. (For the equation of marks with partial concepts, see Logik, Ak. IX.58.) These passage characterize empirical concepts as made; there are, however, others in which Kant says they are given.

    Google Scholar 

  41. KdrV, B130; A77/B103.

    Google Scholar 

  42. The term “determination” suffers from the same sort of ambiguity as intuition and representation: it can refer to 1. a kind of mental entity representing a feature of an object; 2. the process of endowing the object with that feature; or 3. the feature represented In sense 1, a determination is roughly equivalent to a concept In sense 3, it is similar to a mark or property of an object What is peculiar about both these senses is the implication that the mental entity arose or the feature was specified as a result of the process intended in sense 2; this is the sense at issue here.

    Google Scholar 

  43. Ak.XI.338f, 347.

    Google Scholar 

  44. KdrV A764/B792, emphasis mine. Cf “Deutlichkeit”, Ak. II.276f

    Google Scholar 

  45. “Discourse on Metaphysics’ §8, Loemker 307f; cf. Monadohgy §36, 646. See also Beck, “Analytic and Synthetic Judgments before Kant,” op. cit, 85f

    Google Scholar 

  46. See Loemker, 363.

    Google Scholar 

  47. For references indicating that this is in fact Kant’s view, see “Entdeckung”, Ak. VIII.239.19; Logik, Ak. IX.111.12. Cf. H. J. De Vleeschauwer, La Déduction transcendental dans l’ oeuvre de Kant (Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1937), vol.III, 410f: (“In an analytic judgment, the concept of the subject is already formed… But if we take [the subject] in its originary constitution, [the judgment] is synthetic…”). Cf Logik, Ak. IX.63f; “Deutlichkeit”, Ak. II.276. Cf also KdrV, B141f

    Google Scholar 

  48. The important problem of the individuation of objects, and the role of conceptual and spatio-temporal determination in it, is beyond the scope of this paper.

    Google Scholar 

  49. KdrV B147, B165f., etc etc. and A50ff./B74ff. etc.etc.

    Google Scholar 

  50. “Made”: Log IX.141.25; R2959, XVI.587; R2910, XVI.572. “Given”: Log IX.93.23; VorlLog XXIV.571.20,.654,.656; LogBlomXXIV.270.4. (The example of an empirically given concept is “body,” which seems to fit in with the notion of “thing” as the only given empirical concept — R2935, cf R2936.) See the discussion of transcendental judgments and the associated notions, below.

    Google Scholar 

  51. KdrV, A133f/B172f, and the footnote to that passage.

    Google Scholar 

  52. KdrV, A78/B103.

    Google Scholar 

  53. KdrV, A141/B180.

    Google Scholar 

  54. E.g., in “Anschauung und Mannigfaltiges in der transzendentalen Deduktion,” Kant-Studien 72 (1981), 140–48.

    Google Scholar 

  55. If marks are basically properties of objects, they could serve as the universals Aristotle called “present in” an object, i. e. accidents, but not as sortal or kind-universals “predicable of an object, i. e. the species and genera of objects: “snubness” could be a mark, and hence a representation and a concept of Socrates, but “man” and “animal” could not — Aristotle, Categories Chs. 2–5.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Logik, §6, Ak. IX.94; LogWien, Ak. XXIV.907ff.; R2881, Ak. XVI.557 (cf however LogBlom, Ak. XXIV.252.25).

    Google Scholar 

  57. KdrV, A52f./B77.

    Google Scholar 

  58. KdrV, A262f./B318f.

    Google Scholar 

  59. Kant’s discussions give no sense that the empirical determination he intends could be wild or idiosyncratic: cf. KdrV, A721/B749, A727ff/B755ff; R2936, Ak. XVL581.

    Google Scholar 

  60. Kant, as is well known, argures in the Transcendental Aesthetic (KdrV, A23/B38, B40, A30/B46, and elsewhere) that space and time are not concepts (at least not empirical ones), but “a priori intuitions”; and this would then appear to hold of the mathematics based on them. But elsewhere he feels free to refer to mathematical concepts, and I follow this latter usage.

    Google Scholar 

  61. “Deutlichkeit”, Ak. II.276f. See also the references in the discussion of mathematical judgments below.

    Google Scholar 

  62. Logik, Ak. IX.93.

    Google Scholar 

  63. See Beck, Essays, 97: “[Kant] feels justified in classifying judgments according to their grounds (Wahrheitsgründe) and not merely as they are classified in formal logic…”

    Google Scholar 

  64. “Deutlichkeit”, Ak 11.276. Cf. Ak. XXIV.35;.654,.656; R2942, XVI.583; R2957,.586.

    Google Scholar 

  65. A712ff/7B740ff, esp. A723/B751: “With respect to the [form of intuition] we can determine our concepts a priori in intuition, in that by homogeneous synthesis we create for ourselves the objects in space and time, in that we regard them merely as quanta.”

    Google Scholar 

  66. It seems clear from this that Kant could not support the “logicist” view of the foundations of mathematics expressed by Russell in Principia Mathematics according to which the definitions and axioms can be derived from logic alone. This pre-Critical view seems close to the ‘Tormalist” position, though one might expect the Critical view to be closer to Brouwer’s “intuitionist” position, which appeals explicitly to Kant

    Google Scholar 

  67. KdrV, B147; A165/B206; A733/B761; Proleg., Ak. IV.285.9. 67 KdrV, Bxii, A713/B741; Proleg, Ak. IV.281; Logik, Ak. IX.23; etc.

    Google Scholar 

  68. KdrV, A23ff./B38ff., A30ff./B46ff.

    Google Scholar 

  69. KdrV, A713/B741. Cf. “Entdeckung”., Ak. VIII.191f., note; KdrV A223/B271; Ak. XX.325.22.

    Google Scholar 

  70. This explication follows that of Paul Lorenzen; see Lorenzen and Wilhelm Kamlah, Logische Propädeutik (Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 1967), 219–23.

    Google Scholar 

  71. Letter to Herz, Ak. X.131; Diss. §1 n.2, Ak. 11.389.33.

    Google Scholar 

  72. KdrV, B15f See also Proleg. Ak. IV.269;KdrV, A164f./B205f.

    Google Scholar 

  73. KdrV, B16f. (also Proleg. Ak. IX.269); KdrV, A164/B204f.

    Google Scholar 

  74. KdrV, B15f (also Proleg. Ak. IV.269); KdrV A164/B205.

    Google Scholar 

  75. Logik, §99, Ak. IX.140. See also KdrV, A727n./B755n.; R2979, Ak. XVI.598.5; R2927, Ak. XVI.578.

    Google Scholar 

  76. For examples see my “Kant’s Synthetic A Priori: A Contextual Interpretation,” Akten des VIIth Internationalen Kant-Kongresses (Bonn: Bouvier, 1991), vol. II, 159–70.

    Google Scholar 

  77. KdrV, A165/B206.

    Google Scholar 

  78. Logik, Ak. 1X93,.141f. cf. R2836, 2852–55, Ak. XVI.538f.,.546f. (cf. also R2849, Ak. XVI.549).

    Google Scholar 

  79. There are passages, however, with a distinct innatist flavor. “There are definitions for concepts which we have already and are not yet properly designated by the name, e.g. metaphysics. And here it is not so much the meaning of a word that is analysed as a concept which is inherent in us [uns beiwohnt]… (R3003, Ak. XVI.610). But in the Eberhard polemic, Kant explains that though the Critique takes all representations to be acquired, there is a kind of original acquisition (of space, time and the categories), and the ground of this acquisition can count as innate (“Entdeckung”, Ak. VIII.221ff,.249; cf Proleg Ak. IV.330).

    Google Scholar 

  80. KdrV, A727ff./B755ff; Logik, §105, Ak. IX.142f.

    Google Scholar 

  81. See LogWien, Ak. XXIV.917.4; LogPhil, Ak. XXIV/1.457.11; R2936, Ak. XVI.581.14. Cf Logik, §100–104, Ak.IX.141f.

    Google Scholar 

  82. Logik §100, IX.141.

    Google Scholar 

  83. LogPhil, Ak. XXIV.452.24. Cf. LogBlom, Ak. XXIV.252.36.

    Google Scholar 

  84. KdrV, B135.

    Google Scholar 

  85. KdrV, A184/B227.

    Google Scholar 

  86. KdrV, B149, B289; cf. R5650, Ak.XVIII.301f.

    Google Scholar 

  87. Ak.XX.408f.

    Google Scholar 

  88. Beck, “Can Kant’s Synthetic Judgments be Made Analytic?” in Wolff, op.cit., 14. I take the interpretation proposed here to be largely in accord with Beck’s conclusions in this essay.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Memphis University, USA

    Hoke Robinson

Authors
  1. Hoke Robinson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Mainz, Germany

    O. K. Wiegand

  2. Bryn Mawr College, USA

    R. J. Dostal

  3. Florida Atlantic University, USA

    L. Embree

  4. Pennsylvania State University, USA

    J. Kockelmans

  5. Emory University, USA

    J. N. Mohanty

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Robinson, H. (2000). Kant on Apriority, Syntheticity, and Judgments. In: Wiegand, O.K., Dostal, R.J., Embree, L., Kockelmans, J., Mohanty, J.N. (eds) Phenomenology on Kant, German Idealism, Hermeneutics and Logic. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 39. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9446-2_15

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9446-2_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5448-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9446-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation