Abstract
In this paper, I investigate Kant’s view of the cognitive role of perceptions, judgements, and the three categories of Quality in representing negative states of affairs. The paper addresses the following problem. In his account of empirical cognition, Kant seems to limit the legitimate application of the categories to things perceptually available to us, or, more generally, to positive cases. However, Kant also seems to hold that negative states of affairs, such as the absence of a thing, cannot be perceived. This raises the question of how we can represent and make warranted empirical judgements about cases that lack positive instances given in perception. At worst, Kant’s view would imply that thoughts about negative cases are ‘empty’. In order to avoid such a consequence, I wish to draw attention to Kant’s holistic way of thinking. In particular, I shall argue that perception is a process-like temporal phenomenon, and that experience itself is not strictly about the here and now. The paper shows that the cognitive contribution of the categories, according to Kant, is most explicit in representing negative states of affairs, which requires overcoming the main limitation of sense perception, namely the incapacity of negative representation. Even so, positive representation can be seen cognitively primary for Kant.
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Notes
‘A/B’, followed by page numbers, refers to the two editions of Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787). ‘AA’, followed by volume and page numbers, refers to the so-called Academy edition of Kant’s works. ‘R’, followed by number, refers to Kant’s personal notes as they are catalogued in the Academy edition. Unless otherwise stated, the translations are from The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant.
I use the shorter formulations given in the Prolegomena (Kant 2002: 97, AA 4:303).
For attempts at explaining the interrelation between the categories and the forms of judgement, see e.g. Allison 2004; Longuenesse 2000, 2005: 17–39; Longuenesse 2006: 138–152. Interestingly, it appears that for Kant himself the logical forms just provide a ‘clue’ for discovering the categories (A66–80/B92–106). See also Marshall 2014: 560.
This does not mean that Kant finds analytic judgements unimportant (see e.g. AA 28:545), but that they are cognitively insignificant in that they are unable to reveal anything more than what we already know. At best they help us clarify what we already know. I also ignore the notorious distinction between judgements of experience and judgements of perception given in the Prolegomena (see e.g. Allison 2004: 179–182; see also B142).
This marks an important difference between cognition and mere thought (see e.g. Bxxvi*; B146). Cognition, as Kant typically uses the term (for contextual variation of ‘cognition’, see A320/B376–377; A795–796/B823–824; AA 4:408–409; AA 9:64–65), requires that we must be able to refer our thoughts to something sensible. A concrete example would be looking at a house and thinking of the house at the same time. Sometimes such an option is lacking, however. God would be a typical example: we can have God-thoughts, but we cannot cognize God. More generally, the distinction reflects Kant’s anti-rationalist lesson that we should not theorize about the structure of the world by mere thoughts. To do so is to use concepts such as substance without warrant. Consequently, as Kant sees it, much of traditional metaphysics is of little cognitive value. At the same time, some of the concepts of traditional metaphysics are given an important regulative role in Kant’s system (see the Transcendental Dialectic in the Critique).
For explication of Negation as such, consult e.g. Holzhey and Mudroch 2005: 191–192; Kilinc 2015a: 1659–1660. On the concept of nothing (Nichts), see e.g. Vollrath 1970. See also Wood 1933 for an interesting view according to which negative cases express the paradoxical nature of negative judgement.
To put it differently, sensation is the matter of perception, whereas intuition constitutes the form (see A20/B34). By the latter Kant wishes to emphasize that this part of cognition is a priori (e.g. AA 4:284). This is to say that it reflects the non-empirical ground of experience, which preconditions actual empirical representation. Consequently, and also most importantly for the purposes of this paper, experience has a certain structure independent of the matter, the basic idea being that not everything in our experience is based on sensation (cf. B1).
As far as I know, Kant never explicitly refers to negative perception, intuition, or the like, although he does mention ‘empty intuition’ (A292/B348). I thank the referee for pointing out this reference; this is certainly something that should be developed further. At the same time, as I read it, not only does ‘empty intuition’ refer to the a priori intuition of space, but to space as represented with no objects in it, the possibility of which entails that space, instead of being an object of perception, preconditions perception (cf. A22/B36; A24/B38–39). This should leave intact the thesis that there are no sensations of negative states of affairs (see also A292/B349).
See Meier 1752: 83, § 294, according to which the quality of judgement consists of Bejahung and Verneinung, also translatable as ‘acceptance’ and ‘denial’, respectively. See also Aristotle De Interpretatione 6, 17a25–30, and AA 24:156.
Granted, Kant himself does not put it explicitly this way. Nor does he use ‘S is P’ or equivalent.
Modalities complicate the picture. As regards Modality, things are either affirmed to be possibly, actually, or necessarily so (see e.g. A74/B100; the Cambridge edition translation misleadingly reads ‘assertion’ in place of ‘affirmation’ i.e. ‘Bejahen’). Notice, however, that all three are nevertheless instances of acceptance: we take it to be the case that something is actual/possible/necessary.
Here at A246 Kant similarly suggests that magnitudes are determined by applying Quantity in the judgement and that something is taken as the ground of determinations when Substance is related to intuition.
As there is something lasting involved, there is at least also Substance in play (see e.g. A144/B183). More generally put, it seems that the categories operate together in complex ways. It can even be claimed that the categories are quite inseparable in the end (Longuenesse 2000: 322–323).
For textual evidence that by Qualität Kant does not always mean the category of Quality, see e.g. A175/B217, where Kant refers to quality that is not representable a priori. But surely the categories are representable a priori, whereas the sensations themselves, or their contribution to the qualitative content of perception, are not.
To put it differently, a non-human animal hardly thinks how hard the thing (it finds hard through its tactile sense) actually is, or how it compares with other things in this or some other respect, and so on.
See the Anticipations of Perception and Axioms of Intuition, respectively.
Accordingly, it is informative to call Reality ‘the category of sensation’ (Empfindungskategorie) (Maier 1930: 53) as long as we keep in mind that the application of Reality does not refer to entertaining any particular actual sensation, but rather to understanding the structure of intensive magnitudes or ‘sensation in general’ (A167/B208).
Cf. Longuenesse 2000: 299, where it is emphasized that ‘[s]ensation itself is not what is reflected as reality’, but ‘that in the appearance which ‘corresponds’ to sensation’. This may make it easier to see how the real can be an object of mathematical cognition (Longuenesse 2000: 320). For more on reality as intensive magnitude, as the topic has been treated in secondary literature, see e.g. Longuenesse 2000: 310–321.
Obviously, all of this involves the category of Causality, the further analysis of which would sidetrack us. In all, the connection between Reality and Causality, as suggested here, again implies that the categories operate together in complex ways.
By ‘objective judgement’ Kant means, basically, that the judgement has a proper truth-value (see Prauss 1971: 86–88). That is to say that the judgement is true or false irrespectively of a particular cognizer, i.e., as opposed to subjective judgement, objective judgement is supposed to be valid for everyone (see AA 4:298–300). More generally put, objectivity entails the ‘notion of how things really are’ (Moser 2004: 72). See also A271/B327, which suggests that by the idea that cognition equals thoughts plus intuitions Kant means nothing more but the criterion of objectively valid judgements, or thinking ‘about things with objective validity’. On this, see Hanna 2005: 256–257.
For Kant, negative judgements are negative also in the more general sense that they ‘put us in a position not to accept anything but what is true [;] in short, they only serve to avoid error’ (Kant 2004: 123, AA 24:156). In this respect, to judge is to evaluate whether or not to affirm something to be the case: whether to gain knowledge or to at least avoid making false claims—a point that became increasingly important as Kant’s critical project evolved (e.g. A709/B737).
See also AA 2:177–178, where ‘pre-critical’ Kant makes a distinction between privation and lack in a similar manner.
There is certainly a sense in which space and time, understood as forms, can be said to precede reality, understood as matter, given that space and time are a priori and make cognition possible in the first place. Still, I find it doubtful that one should conclude from this ‘[t]he primacy of negation […] over affirmation’ or that ‘nothing […] is ontologically prior to reality’ (Longuenesse 2000: 309). As I see it, this would mean taking the forms of intuition too concretely: as if we literally had empty space–time in our mind waiting to be filled with perceptual stuff.
On this, see esp. the Analogies of Experience.
The appeal to possible experience also secures empirical realism, as there can be more to nature than what is revealed by actual experience (see Abela 2002: 215).
Cf. A166–167/B208–209, where Kant makes reference to two senses of ‘anticipation’.
On categories as forms of thought, see e.g. B150; B288.
As we saw above, Kant also exemplifies Negation with shadow (A291/B347). I think this merely reflects the fact that sometimes shadow is taken roughly as the opposite of light, sometimes more subtly as something that is not exactly light or darkness—a distinction that, as it turns out, can be used to exemplify the difference between Negation and Limitation.
On the notion of quantum, see e.g. Longuenesse 2000: 262–266.
Kant probably had genuinely three-dimensional objects (i.e., bodies) in mind most of the time, so perceiving the shadow is perhaps best understood only in analogy with perceiving an object, understood as ‘external appearance enclosed within its boundaries’, which Kant explicitly identifies with a body (A525/B553).
I thank Mark Siebel for bringing this note to my attention.
In order to clearly distinguish between Negation and Limitation, one might want to call Negation ‘complete negation’ (see A168/B210).
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Acknowledgments
I thank the referees and the guest editors of this special issue for the valuable comments and suggestions that led to several improvements in this article. I would also like to thank the participants of the workshop Perception and Negative Beliefs held at the University of Hamburg in August 2014.
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Laiho, H. Kant on Representing Negative States of Affairs. Topoi 39, 715–726 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9386-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9386-z