Abstract
Thomas Land argues that Kant’s theory of spatial representation supports a moderately conceptualist view of his theory of intuition. In making the case for this he focuses on three aspects of he theory of spatial representation: the distinction Kant draws between the original representation of space and the representations of determinate spaces, the doctrine of the productive imagination and the doctrine of the a priori determination of sensibility by the understanding. He explains why these three aspects support a moderately conceptualist view and considers a number of objections.
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Notes
- 1.
For two notable exceptions see Onof and Schulting (2015) and Tolley, Chap. 11 in this volume.
- 2.
For instances of such a reading, see Allais (2009, 2015), Golob (2014), Hanna (2005, 2008, 2011b), McLear (2014b, 2015) and Tolley (2013). The position is usually defined in terms of a dependence on the possession of concepts. While this is not incorrect, I believe it is more fruitful to frame the issue in terms of the dependence (or otherwise) on exercises of spontaneity, as the focus on concepts can lead to a distorted picture of the doctrine of sensible synthesis, to be introduced below. See Land (2015b) for discussion. Note that my claims in this chapter are limited to the kinds of intuitions that mature human beings enjoy. Non-human animal intuitions, for instance, do not exhibit the kind of spontaneity-dependence I claim here for mature human intuitions. I discuss this issue in Land (forthcoming).
- 3.
A note on terminology: I take it that the notion of a capacity (power) and its exercise or actualisations is fundamental to Kant’s discussion. Thus, sensibility and understanding are capacities, and the representations Kant attributes to them (intuitions, concepts, etc.) are their actualisations, exercise or acts. Talk of “act” in this connection carries no implication of being active as opposed to passive; a passive (receptive) power can be in act just as much as an active (spontaneous) power.
- 4.
On this definition of nonconceptualism, the view can allow for the possibility of actualisations of sensibility that, as a matter of fact, do involve acts of spontaneity. The point is that this is not necessary for intuition to represent objects in the relevant sense.
- 5.
- 6.
It should be noted that this term is not Kant’s. I use it as a generic label for any act of synthesis (among which Kant appears to distinguish different species) that is distinct from synthesis in judgement in the way I explicate below.
- 7.
Note that these labels are used in different ways. See Schulting (2015b) for an alternative usage.
- 8.
- 9.
It might be thought that being extended in time makes sensible synthesis empirical, since time for Kant is a form of empirical intuition. But this is not Kant’s view; see e.g. B155n.: “Motion, as description of a space, is a pure act of the successive synthesis of the manifold in outer intuition in general through productive imagination” (emphasis added).
- 10.
See A103; B154; B155n.; A145/B184; A163/B203–4; A167–8/B209–10; A170/B211–12.
- 11.
Judging is an act of the intellect, that is, an act of the subject’s “self-activity” or “spontaneity” (B130). It is not a sensible representing. As a consequence, it is not subject to the form of inner sense, time. Nor, therefore, is it extended in time. This is not to deny that we can have sensible representations of our own mental states. For helpful discussion see Geach (1969).
- 12.
This is compatible with holding that the content of some concepts is, or includes, a spatiotemporal manifold.
- 13.
See A99–102; B151–2; B153–4; B160n.; B162n.; A141–2/B180–1; B202–3; A163/B204; A170/B211–12; A723/B751.
- 14.
For detailed discussion see Land (2015a). Thanks to Dennis Schulting for requesting clarification of this point.
- 15.
- 16.
An analogous point applies to inner intuitions and time.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
See B154; A162–3/B203–4; A170/B211.
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
- 23.
It should be noted that the textual evidence for the terminological claim is ambiguous. Besides passages that seem to suggest it (see, in addition to B162 and B202–3, Prol, 4:304), there are also passages suggesting the opposite (e.g. B422n.; Anth, 7:134n.). What seems clear is that Kant uses “perception” (Wahrnehmung) to refer to what, without begging the question, can be described as the combination of empirical intuition and consciousness (see e.g. ÜE, 8:217). It is less clear what this implies regarding the meaning of “empirical intuition”. Addressing this issue fully would exceed the scope of this chapter. However, following Allison (2004:193) I wish to note that locutions like “making an empirical intuition into a perception” (cf. B162) can equally well be explained by noting that terms like “intuition” and Anschauung are ambiguous between the -ing and -ed senses and that Kant often appears to employ them in the latter sense (for a clear instance see B278). See also note 20 above. With regard to B202–3 it should also be noted that Kant appears to take the claim that perception is possible only through synthesis in accordance with the concept of a magnitude to entail the claim that all intuitions are magnitudes (which is, after all, what the principle of the Axioms of Intuition states).
- 24.
See e.g. A163/B204: “On this successive synthesis of the productive imagination, in the generation of shapes, is grounded the mathematics of extension (geometry)”; see also A164–5/B205.
- 25.
Cf. B151; see also B154, where Kant says that the synthesis of the productive imagination is what is necessary for having a “determinate intuition” (emphasis in original).
- 26.
“As figurative, it [i.e. the synthesis of the productive imagination] is distinct from the intellectual synthesis without any imagination merely through the understanding” (B152).
- 27.
See note 19 for a list of these.
- 28.
Verzeichnen might be better translated as “noting”, “exhibiting” or “registering”. See Grimm 1854/1961, vol. 25, cols 2494–503; see also Bxxii, where Guyer/Wood render verzeichnen as “catalog”.
- 29.
The preceding sentence makes clear that Kant’s topic is representation; specifically, the particular way in which extensive magnitudes are represented: “I call an extensive magnitude that in which the representation of the parts makes possible the representation of the whole (and therefore necessarily precedes the latter)” (A162/B203).
- 30.
The qualification is needed to make room for the contribution of empirical synthesis, such as the synthesis of apprehension.
- 31.
- 32.
It might be thought that this claim commits me to the view that, for Kant, there can be no sensations that are not intuitions; and, therefore, no sensible representations that are merely “modification[s] of [the subject’s] state” (A320/B376) without at the same time being representations of objects. My response is that, when Kant distinguishes sensations from intuitions and speaks of the former as the matter of intuition, he is not thereby committing himself to the view that there could be mere sensation without any spatiotemporal properties; mere matter without form, that is. His view might well be the following. Any sensible representation exhibits the formal properties of sensible representations, namely, spatiotemporal properties. But among sensible representations we can distinguish two species: mere sensations, on the one hand, and intuitions, on the other. The former are merely subjectively valid, the latter, objectively. The latter have sensations as their matter. So talk of sensation simpliciter is indeterminate with regard to the representational species to which it refers: a sensation is either a mere sensation or it is an intuition. For helpful discussion see McDowell (2009:108–26). Note also that the view articulated in the text is compatible with the claim at B208 that sensation an sich is neither spatially nor temporally extended. For the context of the passage makes clear that sensation in this sense is a mere abstraction. So the claim does not imply that qua matter of empirical intuition sensations are not in time or space.
- 33.
In this sense of “determine”, a receptive capacity is one that is determined from without, while a spontaneous capacity is one that is self-determining. Compare Kant’s claim, at B151–2, that spontaneity is “determining”, whereas sense is “merely determinable”; see also A373, where Kant speaks of an object’s determining sense by way of sensation, and B277n. Note that it is clear that the sense of “determine” here cannot be the “epistemic” sense, according to which an object is determined with respect to some predicate just in case a thinker represents the object as having that predicate (see Stang 2012:1128). For there would be no point in characterising the senses—as opposed to, say, objects sensed—as determinable if this was meant in the epistemic sense.
- 34.
See B160 and A268/B324. So what Onof and Schulting (2015:6) refer to as “the standard interpretation” of the notion of formal intuition, according to which a formal intuition is distinguished from the mere form of intuition by being “determined” in a judgement (that is, brought under some concept in a judgement), is false. It rests on ignoring the doctrine of the a priori determination of sensibility by the understanding.
- 35.
The nonconceptualist will of course insist that this last inference is not warranted because the synthesis of apprehension concerns, not empirical intuition, but rather perception, which is a distinct act of the mind from empirical intuition. But at this juncture in the dialectic the issue is whether or not the moderately conceptualist position is committed to seeing Kant as a sense atomist. To rebut this charge it is not necessary to provide independent grounds for the falsity of nonconceptualism. We are entitled to assume the moderately conceptualist reading.
- 36.
See B154: “Inner sense, on the contrary, contains the mere form of intuition, but without combination of the manifold in it, and thus it does not yet contain any determinate intuition at all, which is possible only through the consciousness of the determination of the manifold through the transcendental action of the imagination (synthetic influence of the understanding on the inner sense), which I have named the figurative synthesis”.
- 37.
For a different reading of this passage than the one that follows, see Tolley (2013:122–3).
- 38.
Guyer/Wood have “moment” where I have “instant”. The German is Augenblick. This is significant because Augenblick is also the word used in the passage from A169/B211 quoted in the footnote below, which offers an explanation of Kant’s usage of the term. In that passage Guyer/Wood have “instant”, so for the sake of consistency I have opted for “instant” in both passages.
- 39.
This is made explicit in the following passage: “The property of magnitudes on account of which no part of them is the smallest (no part is simple) is called their continuity. Space and time are quanta continua, because no part of them can be given except as enclosed between boundaries (points and instants), thus only in such a way that this part itself is in turn a space or a time. Space therefore consists only of spaces, time of times. Points and instants are only boundaries, i.e., mere places of their limitation; but places always presuppose those intuitions that they are supposed to limit or determine” (A169/B211; trans. amended, emphasis added). Guyer/Wood translate “that limit or determine them” where I have “that they are supposed to limit or determine”. The original is “die sie beschränken oder bestimmen sollen”. Both translations are grammatically possible, but it should be clear that e.g. a point is a limitation of the intuition of space rather than the intuition of space being a limitation of a point.
- 40.
Note that the passage is preceded by a “general remark” on which, Kant says, “one must ground everything that follows” and which says that, qua modifications of the mind, all representations belong to inner sense and are therefore subject to the “formal condition” of inner sense, which is time (A98–9).
- 41.
Note that Kant’s talk of sensibility’s “original receptivity” in the passage from A99–100 quoted in the preceding paragraph might be taken as additional evidence, since it might be taken to suggest a distinction between original and derivative receptivity. Sensibility’s original receptivity would be the receptiveness to its a priori determination by the understanding. Sensibility’s derivative receptivity would be its receptiveness to affection by objects in empirical intuition, which presupposes the a priori determination. In terms of this distinction, the charge of sense atomism rests on confounding original and derivative receptivity.
- 42.
It might be thought that on the moderately conceptualist view there is no longer any robust sense in which intuition is given, since according to this view intuition depends on synthesis. But this is unwarranted. The moderate conceptualist allows for givenness in intuition at two levels, each of which is sufficiently robust. With regard to pure intuition, the character of the sensible manifold—for instance, the fact that it has three-plus-one dimensions—is independent of synthesis. The same goes for the fact that there is an “original” manifold to be synthesised, which for the moderate conceptualist amounts to saying that the character of the pure intuitions of space and time cannot be derived from the pure concepts of the understanding and is therefore not brought about by synthesis. With regard to empirical intuition, synthesis does not determine what is apprehended as unified; that is, what kind of object and which sensible qualities. Synthesis merely determines that these are apprehended as objects and as sensible qualities. That is, synthesis is responsible for the fact that an intuition is a representation of an object (in the sense in which the moderate conceptualist takes this phrase).
- 43.
Thanks to Steve Engstrom for bringing the point in parentheses to my attention.
- 44.
There are, however, good reasons for thinking that as a general characterisation of finite spontaneous representation this cannot be correct. See Land (2014a).
- 45.
A162–3/B202–4; A169–70/B211–12. For discussion see Sutherland (2005a).
- 46.
Cf. the doctrine of “motion, as action of the subject” (B154–5). For discussion see Friedman (1992:74–8). We can see here one respect in which the two forms of intuition, space and time, are interdependent: spatial representing, for Kant, is necessarily extended in time.
- 47.
“I call an extensive magnitude that in which the representation of the parts makes possible the representation of the whole (and therefore necessarily precedes the latter). I cannot represent to myself any line, no matter how small it may be, without drawing it in thought, i.e., successively generating all its parts from one point, and thereby first sketching this intuition” (A162–3/B203).
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Land, T. (2016). Moderate Conceptualism and Spatial Representation. In: Schulting, D. (eds) Kantian Nonconceptualism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53517-7_7
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