Abstract
By examining relevant texts and considering the systematic coherence of Kant’s position, this paper asks whether there is a place for nonconceptual content in his Critical philosophy. Starting with representations with conceptual content, Onof successively examines (i) whether there is more to representations whose conceptual content is well established than is captured by means of concepts, and (ii) the possibility of representations with merely nonconceptual content. With these questions answered in the affirmative, Onof addresses the issue of the dependence of representations with merely nonconceptual content upon those with conceptual content, and thereby distances himself from standard nonconceptualist views. He concludes with some general considerations about the functions of the limited notion of nonconceptual content that the paper identifies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Whether or not these are intuitions, is an issue we shall return to below.
- 2.
This is a point overlooked by standard criticisms of Kant’s understanding of self-consciousness as leading to the typical regress that if self-consciousness amounts to a new representation “I think” directed at the contents of consciousness, this representation itself can only be taken up in self-consciousness through a further representation “I think”, and so on. This is however not Kant’s theory and he can conclude that the “I think” “cannot be accompanied by any further representation” (B132).
- 3.
Note that all categories are involved insofar as an object is determined, but the other categories are not apparent from the judgement. So, for instance, the bird in the above judgement is primarily determined under the category of causality, but it is also determined as some reality in the quantity of one.
- 4.
There is also a view that it is only schemata that are involved, but they make indirect reference to concepts, so I shall not distinguish this option here.
- 5.
This intuition, insofar as it is an intuition unified by the concept “dog”, and not the concept “dog seen under this perspective”, therefore has some features for which there is no perceptual input, and others for which there is. The original sensible input is in the intuition, but it is organised spatially according to the concept structuring it. This issue is not just a gestalt type point about the psychology of perception, but is the important epistemological distinction between intuitions and images, much as they are closely connected insofar as “the imagination is to bring the manifold of intuition into an image” (A120). So, while unifying the manifold with the concept “dog”, I actually only receive perceptual inputs of parts of the dog that are visible to me, and my image of a dog results from the infilling guided by the schema. But the schema also ensures that my intuition is of a dog with completely hidden parts, insofar as it enables me to produce an intuition of the whole of the dog. The same can be said of my intuition of a line: what I construct in thought is a limited section of the line, but my intuition is of an indefinitely long line. What is not explicitly represented in image form in the intuition is something of which I am obscurely conscious: I am conscious of the dog as a whole, but have no clear consciousness of, for instance, the hidden side, however much I have an obscure consciousness of it (I am aware that it is not wooden, stretching out a mile, etc.).
- 6.
A conceptualist might want to object that a spatial representation inherits conceptual features (minimally, the structuring role of the categories) from the fact that space is a formal intuition. For a refutation of such claims, see Onof and Schulting (2015).
- 7.
Note that the notion of (non)conceptual content arises in contemporary philosophy of mind and philosophy of language when addressing the question of how a mental state represents the world as being. That is, typical mental states of belief, desire or hope are propositional attitudes; their object, a proposition, represents the world in a way which is essentially conceptual: this defines conceptual content and accounts for its central role (Toribio 2007). Asking the question of the existence of nonconceptual content in Kant’s philosophy therefore requires adapting this general question to the Kantian framework, thereby (i) appealing to a different notion of concept (see Grüne 2009:35–65), and (ii) transposing it to a transcendentally idealistic framework in which representations are not simply mental occurrences, but rather fulfil a transcendental function in an account of the possibility of objects.
- 8.
I agree with Hanna’s (2011a:354) view that the content of an intuition is essentially different from that of a concept. In terms of the contemporary debate, arguments against allowing for a distinctive sort of content that is not conceptual often resort to a distinction between the vehicle and the content of the representation. This distinction is questionable, as Crane (2013:242–3) has shown. I set this issue aside here since my concern is the dependence upon conceptual content.
- 9.
I use this term rather than the term “relative” which Speaks (2005) uses to denote the claim that a subject’s representation can have a certain content even though the subject does not possess the concepts to articulate it conceptually. The difference is that, here, the issue is just that the subject does not determine the object under the said concepts.
- 10.
It is however arguable that McDowell (1998) would not even accept a role for such dependent nonconceptual content.
- 11.
There is also room for a moderate conceptualist response to the position I presented in the previous section which is very close to the position I arrive at in this chapter (see Schulting 2017, Chap. 6).
- 12.
In fact, the fourth stage refers to a form of cognition not available to animals, and must therefore also involve the faculty of understanding.
- 13.
See also Hanna (2001:46–65; 2005:259–60).
- 14.
Additionally, in the “deduction from beneath” part of the A-Deduction, Kant talks of perceptions as prior to the syntheses of apprehension and reproduction (A120).
- 15.
I am only considering the empirical acts of apprehension and reproduction here. Certainly, the pure synthesis of apprehension involves a role for the productive imagination, which means that the spontaneity of the understanding has a part to play here (A119).
- 16.
The issue of finding an appropriate concept for a manifold in intuition is another problem, that of empirical judgement, and this is not addressed in the Critique of Pure Reason.
- 17.
Note that such a ground would also be an objective ground for the temporal sequence of the representations which are apprehended.
- 18.
Kant is concerned with the objective ground of our associations here, which he identifies as “original apperception” (A122). The distinction between this section and the presentation of the threefold synthesis (A98–110) is that the latter presents us with an account of the generation of intuitions of which we are conscious as a whole, i.e. of objectively unified intuitions, which is Kant’s stronger notion of intuition. These require conceptualisation. If it were impossible to have any other type of intuition, the deduction would be complete at the end of A110. What Kant has to show afterwards is that for any intuitions of which we are conscious there must be an objective ground for their being connected, even if only associatively.
- 19.
In referring to the B-Deduction here, I am avoiding getting into the detail of the differences between the two versions of TD on the issue of how the manifold arises. In particular, note that there is no mention of synopsis in the B-Deduction.
- 20.
To illustrate this in contradistinction from Kant’s example of addition to illustrate the synthesis of recognition (A103–4), consider the act of counting to 50 when it is carried out mechanically, e.g. when doing one’s morning exercises. There is a unity in the sequence that is defined by the associations between each number and its successor which guide our ability to count without reflecting. But this is distinct from the unity of the objective synthesis of all the units which determines their sum as 50. The first case does not feature a grasp of 50 as sum of so many units, which characterises the second case, so that only the second case involves the cognition of a number.
- 21.
While this unity is not objective, the A-Deduction purports to show that it is nevertheless grounded in an objective unity (A121–2): this is the “transcendental affinity of which the empirical affinity is the mere consequence” (A114). Nevertheless, the empirical associations we make have a subjective dimension beyond this objectivity, as Kant explains in the B-Deduction: “The empirical unity of apperception … which is … derived only from the former [i.e. the original unity of consciousness], under given conditions in concreto, has merely subjective validity” (B140).
- 22.
I cannot follow Grüne (2009:227–32) in the role she assigns to the categories as obscure concepts. Concepts guiding the sensible synthesis must be sensible, I would argue, and it is their schemata that are all that is actually involved in sensible synthesis without judgement, but there is no space to argue for this here.
- 23.
The notion of obscure concept is a difficult one to pin down in Kant’s writings, for the simple reason that in A103 Kant defines a concept as “this one consciousness that unifies the manifold that has been successively intuited, and then also reproduced, into one representation”, while clear concepts are “concepts of which we are conscious” (V-Lo/Busolt, 24:617). It would therefore seem that obscure concepts are both a form of consciousness and something of which we are not conscious. Grüne (2009:85) draws the conclusion that clear concepts imply the ability to apperceive, which she spells out as the ability to judge that the object does indeed fall under the concept in question. This seems correct, but if an obscure concept were not to involve this ability, then, according to Kant’s famous claim at B131–2, such a concept “would either be impossible or else at least would be nothing for me”. I think rather that recognition in the case of the involvement of a clear concept involves an actual apperception. This need not, however, involve the formulation of an explicit judgement, but an implicit judgement is involved, such that I take the object in question to be determined in certain ways, which is how I understand Kant’s conception of an “I think” that “accompan[ies] all my representations” (B131). In this way, the act of apperception corresponds to full clarity of a concept, and anything less implies that no actual apperceptive act is involved. This is, arguably, also in line with Schulting’s (2015a:28) characterisation of the distinction obscure/clear as one pertaining to the intensity of the consciousness, if, unlike Schulting, apperception is taken to be a type of consciousness that has maximal intensity.
- 24.
This is the sense of “object” Kant uses in the Jäsche Logic classification, e.g. when describing level 4: “Animals are acquainted with objects too, but they do not cognize them” (Log, 9:64–5).
- 25.
Nothing plays the function of transcendental object in relation to these merely logical “objects”. Pace Allais (2009:412), there is thus no intentional relation of the subject of knowledge to these “objects” (since these representations are not within the purview of transcendental apperception).
- 26.
In terms of the content of the subject’s intuitive representations, there is little that distinguishes PCT from content that is brought under an obscure concept through the synthesis of recognition (see Grüne 2009 and note 23 above). The reason is that, since the concept is obscure, there is no clarity as to what the objective determination in question actually is. But the important difference is that, even when the concept involved is obscure, that which I perceive is grasped as an instantiation of a general concept, i.e. of a certain type. This means that it is available for further clarification and further determination: the “I think” must be able to accompany the representations that are thereby synthesised. By contrast, in PCT, what is differentiated is not considered in this way: it is not available for further clarification within PCT, or further determination within PCT. It is only through a further cognitive act of synthesis that it could be made accessible to apperception.
- 27.
I am therefore not self-conscious (in Kant’s apperceptive sense) in having these representations, and could not be. That does not mean that I am not conscious, however. As such the representations in question are clear representations, i.e. representation with consciousness (level 2 of the Jäsche Logic classification). Moreover, there is room for them to be distinct on Kant’s understanding of “distinctness”, that is, for the parts of the representation to be clear (Grüne 2009:81), so that one is thereby aware of what is identical and what is distinct in the representation (level 3 of the Jäsche Logic classification), although this is not necessarily the case for all the parts of the representation, as Kant’s famous example of the Milky Way shows (Log, 9:35).
- 28.
- 29.
This does not absolve us from full responsibility for our actions because we ought to be actively seeking to do our duty, whatever inclinations we might be aware of or not.
- 30.
This characterisation of the debate is highly simplified. First, it is unclear exactly what counts as action “in-the-flow”, as Dreyfus and McDowell disagree on how specific examples of behaviour should be classified (see McDowell 2013:49). Second, the notion of concept employed in the contemporary debate is broader than Kant’s (it includes demonstratives for instance). Third, there is a sense in which these authors are not engaged in the same discussion: whereas McDowell’s concerns are ultimately normative, Dreyfus’s are about the nature of mental content (see Gardner 2013:110–11).
- 31.
There are appeals to Kant on both sides of the debate, but mostly in support of McDowell’s views (e.g. Pippin 2013:102).
- 32.
See note 26 above.
- 33.
Such a grasp does not require adopting any detached perspective as Dreyfus (2013:34) claims, since actual apperception is not required here. As Grüne shows (see note 23 above), sensible synthesis under obscure concepts enables such a grasp, for instance through the use of schemata.
- 34.
Dennis Schulting’s insightful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter are gratefully acknowledged.
Bibliography
Allais, Lucy.2009. Kant, Non-Conceptual Content and the Representation of Space. Journal of the History of Philosophy 47(3): 383–413.
Allison, H.1990. Kant’s Theory of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brook, A. 2013. Kant’s View of the Mind and Consciousness of Self. In Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, ed. E. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/kant-mind/ .
Crane, T.2013. The Given. In Mind, Reason and Being-in-the-World. The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate, ed. J. Schear, 229–249. London: Routledge.
Dreyfus, H.2013. The Myth of the Pervasiveness of the Mental. In Mind, Reason and Being-in-the-World. The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate, ed. J. Schear, 15–40. London: Routledge.
Gardner, S.2013. Transcendental Philosophy and the Possibility of the Given. In Mind, Reason and Being-in-the-World. The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate, ed. J. Schear, 110–142. London: Routledge.
Grüne, S2009. Blinde Anschauung. Die Rolle von Begriffen in Kants Theorie sinnlicher Synthesis. Frankfurt a/M: Klostermann.
Hanna, R.2001. Kant and the Foundations of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hanna, R2006. Kant, Science, and Human Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Land, T2015a. Nonconceptualist Readings of Kant and the Transcendental Deduction. Kantian Review 20(1): 25–51.
———2015b. No Other Use Than in Judgment? Kant on Concepts and Sensible Synthesis. Journal of the History of Philosophy 53(3): 461–484.
Longuenesse, B.1998a. Kant and the Capacity to Judge. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Longuenesse, B2000. Kant’s Categories and the Capacity to Judge: Responses to Henry Allison and Sally Sedgwick. Inquiry 43(1): 91–110.
McDowell, J1998. Having the World in View: Sellars, Kant and Intentionality. [The Woodbridge Lectures]. Journal of Philosophy 95(9): 431–491.
———2013. The Myth of the Mind as Detached. In Mind, Reason and Being-in-the-World. The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate, ed. J. Schear, 41–58. London: Routledge.
McLear, C.2011. Kant on Animal Consciousness. Philosophers’ Imprint 11(15): 1–16.
Onof, C.2011a. Thinking the In-Itself and Its Relation to Appearances. In Kant’s Idealism. New Interpretations of a Controversial Doctrine, eds. D. Schulting and J. Verburgt, 211–235. Dordrecht: Springer.
Onof, C 2011b. Moral Worth and Inclinations in Kantian Ethics. Kant Studies Online. pp. 116–61.
Onof, C., and D. Schulting.2015. Space as Form of Intuition and as Formal Intuition: On the Note to B160 in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Philosophical Review 124(1): 1–58.
Pippin, R2013. What is “Conceptual Activity”? In Mind, Reason and Being-in-the-World. The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate, ed. J. Schear, 91–109. London: Routledge.
Schulting, D2012a. Kant’s Deduction and Apperception. Explaining the Categories. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
———2015a. Transcendental Apperception and Consciousness in Kant’s Lectures on Metaphysics. In Reading Kant’s Lectures, ed. R. Clewis, 89–113. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter.
———2015b. Probleme des “kantianischen” Nonkonzeptualismus im Hinblick auf die B-Deduktion. Kant-Studien 106(4): 561–580.
Speaks, J.2005. Is There a Problem About Nonconceptual Content? Philosophical Review 114(3): 359–398.
Strawson, P.F.1959. Individuals. London: Methuen.
Toribio, J.2007. Nonconceptual Content. Philosophy Compass 2/3: 445–460.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Onof, C. (2016). Is There Room for Nonconceptual Content in Kant’s Critical Philosophy?. In: Schulting, D. (eds) Kantian Nonconceptualism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53517-7_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53517-7_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-53516-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-53517-7
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)