Abstract
The impetus for this paper is the question of how to think of the in-itself and its role in Transcendental Idealism. This is only an issue if Kant’s claim that the in-itself exists has more than a methodological meaning, so the paper will start by emphasizing the metaphysical dimension of the enterprise of the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR).
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Notes
- 1.
Note that I tend to avoid the term ‘thing in itself’ on the grounds that we naturally think of thinghood in terms of objects, which, as I shall show, is not helpful.
- 2.
As we shall see, this involves thinking the in-itself under the category of causality.
- 3.
There are some exceptions though, historically with Heimsoeth and more recently Aquila (1979).
- 4.
Translations from the Critique of Pure Reason are from Guyer and Wood (Kant 1997).
- 5.
Rogerson’s (1993) anti-realist reading of CPR also belongs here.
- 6.
This would amount to a clear privileging of the ‘in-itself’ aspect, which Aquila (1979) takes to be the only consistent way of understanding the two-aspect view. I am sympathetic to this point, but not to the consequence that Aquila draws from this, namely that this ultimately reduces to the two-object view.
- 7.
Allison deals with this issue by emphasizing that his is a methodological distinction between the in-itself and appearances. This however does not address the core of the problem. As Robinson (1994: 422) points out, we need some justification for claiming that the same thing can have properties which are mutually exclusive.
- 8.
Prauss (1974: 42–43) and Allison (2004: 51–52) make much of textual evidence they claim points to a single-object double-aspect view. This is the fact that ‘thing in itself’, i.e. ‘Ding an sich (selbst)’ is arguably a short form for ‘thing considered in-itself’, i.e. ‘Ding an sich selbst betrachtet’. This interpretation suggests that it is the same things which are at stake here as in the empirical realm, but considered as they are in themselves. As Ameriks (2003: 77) points out, many commentators have shown that some passages rather “imply the traditional adjectival interpretation (B164; A504/B532f.)”. Additionally, consider the following. Take two empirical objects x and y which are identical but have different spatial locations. One must therefore posit X and Y which are the same objects with a different bunch of properties, as things in themselves. Now either X and Y are identical or they are not. If they are not identical, why is it that they give rise to the same appearances? If they are identical, how is it that their appearances are numerically different: they have exactly the same intrinsic (and the same extrinsic) properties, so what is it about them that accounts for their numerical difference (which does amount to distinct indexical properties)?
- 9.
This methodology is consistent with Kant’s method of separating and differentiating so as to isolate that which is the object of the investigation. Thus, in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, he starts off with a pre-philosophical grasp of the good, and separates out the notion of the good in his philosophical analysis. Similarly here, the critical understanding of what it is to be an object emerges from a starting point in which this notion is grasped pre-critically, by differentiating it from the undetermined object of intuition and from the realist’s notion of an object as thing in itself.
- 10.
Below, I return to Kant’s claim that this is something one “relates to an object in general” (B207).
- 11.
The determinacy I refer to is conceptual determinacy. As Longuenesse (2005: 215) points out, in the Jäsche Logic Kant also refers to intuitions as “thoroughly determinate cognitions” (AA 9: 99n.). But this usage of ‘determinacy’ in CPR refers to conceptual determinacy (see e.g. A20=B34).
- 12.
Later, we will see that Kant does refer to the ground of affection in terms of the general notion of ‘transcendental object’, but this is not an undetermined object.
- 13.
Note that this is different from ‘some thing-in-itself exists’.
- 14.
The term ‘distance’ is used insofar as it is useful to describe the phenomenology of the epistemic relation to an intentional object and the lack of any such relation to something in-itself.
- 15.
This receives further support in the Opus postumum, where Kant states that the “thing in itself = x is not an object given to the senses, but only the principle of synthetic a priori knowledge of the manifold of sensible intuition in general, and of the law of its coordination” (OP, AA 22: 33.23–26 [Kant 1993, 175]). Beiser (2002: 212–214) explains that this does not amount to a denial of reality in-itself, but to a clarification of its role within transcendental philosophy.
- 16.
This amounts to a more metaphysically committed take on Allison’s claim that “the indispensable role of material condition of [discursive] cognition must be assigned to something considered as it is in itself, apart from this epistemic relation and, therefore, as a merely transcendental object” (Allison 2004, 68).
- 17.
The link is best understood in terms of the Transcendental Unity of Apperception (TUA), which I do not discuss here for greater simplicity. TUA, as correlate of the transcendental object, has an analytic unity which contains a synthesis, and requires consciousness of it (cf. B133).
- 18.
This should not, however, be seen as grounds for adopting a double-aspect theory. The fact that the same notion of transcendental object is used to refer both to the ground of affection, and to the bare substrate of the to-be-determined object, lends no support to this view. For no object is identified through this notion: it is the bare x that stands beyond my representation.
- 19.
As to the worry that the categories have no meaning without a manifold in intuition, Kant claims (A247=B304) that they enable the thought of objects. They thus merely have “transcendental significance” (A248=B305).
- 20.
One way of looking at this is to say that transcendental reflection yields conditions which appear to be of the type: (I have knowledge of objects) → (T is true). This would, together with the truth of the premise (I have knowledge of objects), yield the truth of T. The problem with this representation of the structure of an argument in transcendental reflection is that it is made without any attention to the conditions under which the component clauses are meaningful. The premise that I have knowledge of objects refers to an ‘I’ which is not a constitutive part of the empirical world, but also not something which has reality in-itself. It cannot therefore be taken as describing a ‘fact’ in the way the realist would take it. Rather, it is the statement of the very existence of a particular world of experience. Also, the conclusion is actually related to a possible subject of cognition, and not about a pre-given domain of reality. As a result, it seems more appropriate to represent transcendental reflection as stating: (∀c) (c is a discursive cognizer) →[(c has knowledge of objects) → (T(c) is true)] where the dependence of T upon the subject of cognition is made explicit. This dependence is, e.g., in the case at hand, that of the notion of the in-itself upon its transcendental role as ground of affection.
- 21.
Having clarified that the content of intuitions is non-conceptual (see Abela 2002), I would like to clarify why, in a transcendentally idealistic framework, this means that they are not determinate in terms of our discursive concepts. In a way, this point is obvious, but it is perhaps not sufficiently appreciated in what sense it implies a different notion of non-conceptual content from that used in a transcendentally realist setting. In such a setting, if we now claim that the immediate content of the perceptual experience is non-conceptual (e.g. see Martin 1992, Peacocke 2001), this content must, however be conceptually determinate. Why? Perceptual knowledge can only be acquired insofar as conceptual judgements can be formed whose truth will lie in their adequacy for the non-conceptual content of the perceptual experience. But in this realist setting, the direction of fit is from reality to knowledge. Which concepts are adequate to represent this content is a matter that must be determined by the content itself. That is, this content must be conceptually determinate. An easy way of understanding this is of considering the content of an image. This is visual content, but its features are conceptually determinate, e.g. there are well-defined colours, shapes, locations, etc. These correspond to what is conceptually determinate in this non-conceptual content of the image. Additionally, if a causal theory of perception is adopted, the determinacy of the content follows from the fact that this theory accounts for how conceptually determinate objects give rise to perceptual judgements. If we now turn to the TI setting, let us assume that the non-conceptual content of an intuitive representation were conceptually determinate. Insofar as the subject is aware of this content, the conceptual features of the content would determine which concepts it is appropriate to apply to it, as in the realist case above. But this is incompatible with a proper understanding of Kant’s Copernican revolution which has it that the normativity of knowledge lies in the unity which the subject imposes upon her representations. For Kant, knowledge is a “whole of compared and connected representations” (A97). Insofar as a subject’s spontaneity is required for the conceptual determination of the manifold in intuition, the concepts that are appropriate for objective knowledge of a particular object cannot be given through his receptive faculty. It is therefore clear that non-conceptual content within a TI framework is also not conceptually determinate.
- 22.
The determinacy of the cause involves a determinacy of its causal power, and therefore of the type of causal link that brings about the effect in question. Acknowledgment is due to an anonymous reviewer who drew my attention to the need to clarify this issue.
- 23.
By drawing on CTP, I am not taking it as correct, or indeed, as a tool for the interpretation of Kant’s account of perception. Rather, I am using it to draw an analogy between (a) the transcendental-idealist account of how the in-itself acts as ground of the manifold of intuitive representations, whereby this manifold provides the material condition for perceptual knowledge of an appearance of that which is in-itself; and (b) the transcendental-realist account of how the object o that is seen has a causal impact upon the perceiver S, which provides the material for S’s claim that she perceives o. In this analogy, CTP is taken, minimally, to be claiming that “for all perceivers S and objects or visual arrays o, S sees o if o is a cause of S’s seeing” (Vision 1995, 9).
- 24.
As noted previously, I am using CTP for comparative purposes only. Insofar as Kant arguably holds such a theory as an empirical account of perceptual knowledge, it is important briefly to clarify how this is compatible with the transcendental account in terms of affection. In the latter, some conceptually indeterminate in-itself has a causal impact upon the faculty of sensibility whereby a manifold of sensations constitutes the content of an intuitive representation. In the empirical account, the conceptually determinate object can be viewed as empirically in a causal relation with the occurrence in time of a mental state whose content is a determinate representation, that of the object. That is, the empirical account is an empirical realist one in which the content of my mental state is explained in terms of the object as its cause. In the transcendental account, the representation is involved through its transcendental function as condition for cognition, while in the second, it is taken as a mental event in inner sense. These two accounts therefore have complementary roles and are not in conflict.
- 25.
One might object that conceptual determinacy could, in some sense, be lost for me in the formation of the content of the manifold in intuition, insofar as it would not be part of what I am conscious of. This, however would lead to skepticism. Indeed, it would imply that there are conceptual truths about appearances (here understood as the mere manifold in intuition) that exist independently of my cognition, but to which I have no access. This would, of course, be thoroughly in conflict with the spirit of Kant’s critical epistemology.
- 26.
Note that it could be argued that there is no such intermediate step, and indeed, I agree that such a step is not necessary. It is however certainly possible that there should be such a step, particularly if one has drawn the figure as part of some larger figure. It would then not immediately appear as three-dimensional.
- 27.
More could be said here by reference to the Critique of Judgment. As this is beyond the scope of this article, I shall merely make the following two remarks. First, insofar as no concepts, i.e., finite sets of marks (A137=B176) can grasp the total content of an intuition, the latter may lend itself to the experience of the mathematically sublime. This would be the case if it were viewed as having an infinitely differentiated content (i.e., grasped differently from a cognitive act which precisely abstracts from such an infinity to bring the intuition under a finite set of marks characteristic of a concept). Second, this wealth of content is also a condition of the possibility of the experience of beauty. Were it possible to exhaust the intuitive content with concepts, the free play of the imagination and the understanding required by the experience of beauty (CJ, AA 5: 217) would be restricted in a way which is not compatible with the free character of the interaction of the faculties in this aesthetic experience.
- 28.
It could however be thought in relation to our cognition under the category of possibility, as that which provides the possibility which the conceptual determinations will transform into actual determinations of an object (see Chapter 9 by Schulting, this volume).
- 29.
Here, note Descartes’ ‘causal non-inferiority principle’, as Catherine Wilson calls it: “[T]here must be at least as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in its effect; for where can the effect acquire its reality, if not from its cause?” (Descartes 1996, 27) This could be used to support the non-conceptual determinacy of the in-itself if it is to give rise to intuitive content which represents a surplus in comparison with conceptually determinate content.
- 30.
What makes this claim perhaps seem surprising, is our tendency to think of the in-itself in terms of the intentional notion of object which empirical objectivity rests upon. An empirical object is not a particular. Rather it is the locus of a cluster of conceptual properties, a finite set of which are determined at any point in time. The limit of an infinite determination which would exhaust what is represented intuitively is, I would claim, an ideal that amounts to an empirical counterpart of the notion of a particular in-itself.
- 31.
Note that some support for this claim can be found in Kant’s understanding of God’s perspective upon the in-itself (e.g., OP, AA 22: 342.15–16). The key feature of this view is that the nature of the particular is derivable from the grasp of the whole. But a conceptual determination of some thing can never be derived from a conceptual determination of the whole it belongs to—rather the opposite is true. As a result, the properties of the particular are not graspable with concepts.
- 32.
What can however be helpful in grasping these intrinsic properties is to note that they give rise to the surplus of content of the manifold of intuition as compared with any conceptualizations thereof. The latter, I would argue, is closely bound up with what is often described as the intrinsic nature of the properties of our phenomenal experience (here phenomenal refers to the ‘what it is like’ aspect of our conscious experience). These properties are best understood as characterizing the fact of being affected. It is open to a Kantian to view these properties as relational properties between something in-itself and some notion of noumenal self.
- 33.
Langton’s ground for a realistic interpretation of Kant lies in her understanding of the in-itself as the substance of which spatiotemporal characteristics (of appearances) are the relational properties. This is based upon an understanding of substance that is at odds with Kant’s theory of experience, as Allais points out (Allais 2006, 149–150). Although Allais does not develop this point, it seems that Langton’s error is made possible by a problem with Kant’s definition of the pure category of substance, which involves the claim that it is that which cannot be thought of as a determination of anything else. This is not obviously warranted by the nature of the function of the unity of judgement from which it is derived (see Melnick 1973, 67). And it opens the door for a very absolutist conception of the schematized category as the substratum of all that is real (A181=B255), which prima facie would seem better described as an Idea of Reason, i.e., a regulative rather than a constitutive concept. In any case, what the First Analogy claims is that a notion of substance is constitutive of the world of appearances, while Langton, on the contrary, has it that the world of appearances is constituted around a notion of substance that is inaccessible to our knowledge, i.e., the in-itself. This contradicts Kant’s whole understanding of what it is for something to be an object, by ‘dogmatically’ introducing a notion of substance from outside the domain of experience.
- 34.
I agree with Quarfood’s (Chapter 8, this volume) criticism of Förster’s attempt to distinguish between an intuitive understanding and an intellectual intuition. Quarfood’s analysis of discursivity, which draws on material in the Critique of Judgment, and his claim that concepts used to determine an intuition will never suffice to completely grasp its content, are particularly congenial to the views I have been putting forward.
- 35.
Here, I disagree with Allison who claims that “the thought of things as they are in themselves does, as Paul [Guyer] suggests, involve an abstraction of sorts, but not from all relation to our epistemic conditions” (in Wood et al. 2007, 35). Rather, this understanding of the in-itself points to the limits of our concepts just as Kant indicates for his notion of noumenon: “[A]lthough beings of understanding certainly correspond to the beings of sense, and there may even be beings of understanding to which our sensible faculty of intuition has no relation at all, our concepts of understanding […] do not reach these in the least” (B308–309).
Abbreviations
- CTP:
-
Causal Theory of Perception
- TI:
-
Transcendental Idealism
- TR:
-
Transcendental Realism
- TUA:
-
Transcendental Unity of Apperception
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Manfred Baum and Gary Banham for comments on a previous oral version of this paper, and indebted to Dennis Schulting and his in-depth knowledge of the literature for commenting on this paper with thoughtful insights.
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Onof, C. (2010). Thinking the In-itself and Its Relation to Appearances. In: Schulting, D., Verburgt, J. (eds) Kant's Idealism. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 66. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9719-4_11
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