Abstract
In previous projects I have found keeping an eye on differences between the general theory of concepts1 developed by Kant in the first Critique and those developed by his rationalist (typified by Leibniz) and empiricist (typified by Hume) predecessors to be a fruitful approach for both understanding some difficult texts in the first Critique and for clarifying how Kant has the resources to resolve some classic problems from early modern philosophy.
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Notes
- 1.
I say ‘general theory of concepts’ here in order to indicate that Kant’s theory applies to all concepts not just pure concepts.
- 2.
See Bayne (2004: 2–13).
- 3.
See Bayne (2008).
- 4.
I believe it would also be interesting to ask this question in reverse as well—that is, whether it is the adoption of transcendental idealism that makes the first Critique’s general theory of concepts possible.
- 5.
Corey Dyck has suggested to me that although in the Inaugural Dissertation Kant does not explicitly write that concepts are rules, perhaps Kant’s characterization there of the concepts of space and time, and the concepts of the understanding, as being abstracted from laws of the mind (e.g., see sections 15 and 8 respectively) amounts to the same thing. I must admit I find this to be an intriguing possibility. I find the suggestion plausible particularly in light of what Kant writes in §4 when he is explaining the distinction between the matter and form of representations of sense. There he writes that the matter is “the sensation, and there is also something which may be called the form, the aspect namely of sensible things which arises according as the various things which affect the senses are co-ordinated by a certain natural law of the mind” (AA 2: 392 [Kant 1992a, 384]). Furthermore, Kant continues, “if the various factors in an object which affect the senses are to coalesce into some representational whole there is needed an internal principle in the mind, in virtue of which those various factors may be clothed with a certain aspect, in accordance with stable and innate laws” (AA 2: 393 [Kant 1992a, 385]). At the very least, the idea that an internal principle of the mind is needed in order for various factors to coalesce into a representational whole seems to foreshadow central aspects of Kant’s theory of concepts as rules. It would require further investigation to determine whether this turns out to be more than just foreshadowing. If it is more than just foreshadowing, however, then this introduces the intriguing possibility that in the Inaugural Dissertation we would find an example of someone, in this case Kant himself, holding the theory of concepts as rules, while at the same time maintaining transcendental realism.
- 6.
I do not intend to imply either that these are exhaustive of early modern theories of concepts or that these two theories could not be held in combination.
- 7.
One issue that complicates things with Locke is that he is often thought to be an imagist. So, if I am right about finding the concepts as marks theory in Locke, then Locke might turn out to be a case in which the concepts as marks theory is actually held in combination with the concepts as images theory.
- 8.
I should note that the ambiguity between whether these marks define an object or type of object introduces a subject of some controversy. Whether or not by means of concepts alone we can fully characterize or define a particular object rather than a type of object should be a familiar controversy. According to Leibniz’s early view of substance, every substance has a complete notion (or concept). This concept contains all the predicates that are true of the substance. This would mean, theoretically at least, that a particular object could be defined by concepts alone. Kant himself, in his pre-critical Blomberg Logic Lectures, distinguishes between singular concepts and general concepts, where “[i]n the former I think only one thing, but through the latter […] I think that which is common to many things” (AA 24: 257 [Kant 1992b, 205]). By the time Kant fully develops his distinction between concepts and intuitions along with the distinct roles they play in cognition, however, he can no longer allow that the particular objects of theoretical cognition can be fully determined by means of concepts alone.
- 9.
Meaning they won’t prick your skin if you touch them like the sharp and pointy needles on a pine tree will.
- 10.
Thanks to Harlan Kredit, a ranger at Yellowstone National Park, for teaching me these marks of fir tree needles.
- 11.
He does often use the word conception to refer to the act of thinking. He also frequently uses the word notion, but as far as I can discern, he uses it interchangeably with the word idea.
- 12.
It is important to note that Hume cannot endorse his copy thesis in full force until he factors in the distinction between simple and complex ideas and impressions. While it turns out that “[a]ll our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv’d from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent,” (Hume 2000, 9; the entire sentence is italicized in the original) complex ideas do not have to exactly represent complex impressions. Since complex ideas are made up of simple ideas, however, it will turn out that complex ideas will have to be exact copies of some set of simple impressions.
- 13.
Two things to note here. First, image must be understood in a broad sense. That is, there is no reason to think that Hume intends to confine ideas to our visual perceptions. When we hear a whistle (an auditory impression), the copy of this sound is not a visual image, but instead it would be an auditory image. This of course stretches the normal use of the word image, but I’m not sure what other word would serve our purposes any better. Second, John Yolton is a commentator who argued against this traditional view of Hume’s ideas. Yolton (1980) argued that although ideas are “exact representations” of impressions, ideas need not be likened to images. This, however, is clearly a minority position.
- 14.
Unless noted otherwise, all translations of Kant’s texts are my own.
- 15.
It may be interesting to note that as opposed to Berkeley, Hume acknowledges that there is something to be explained about how it is possible for a particular determinate idea to adequately represent all objects of a certain type. Berkeley simply asserts that this does happen. He writes that “I believe we shall acknowledge, that an idea, which considered in itself is particular, becomes general, by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort” (Berkeley 1982, 13). Yet, as opposed to Locke before him and Hume after him, Berkeley doesn’t seem to see why this is problematic. For example with the idea of a triangle he writes that “the particular triangle I consider […] does equally stand for and represent all rectilinear triangles whatsoever and is in that sense universal. All which seems very plain and not to include any difficulty in it” (Berkeley 1982, 15).
- 16.
This in turn might make it easier to see the importance of the concepts as rules theory to transcendental idealism.
- 17.
Note here, however, that just twenty pages earlier we find the claim that “[i]t is customary to call sensibility also the lower faculty, understanding on the other hand the higher faculty, on the ground that sensibility gives the mere material for thought, but the understanding manages [disponirt] this material and brings it under rules or concepts.” (AA 9: 36)
- 18.
As suggested by an anonymous referee, it may be that for Kant concepts involve more than one type of unity—that is, analytic unity and synthetic unity. Kant most famously examines these types of unity when he discusses the unity of apperception or consciousness. As far as I am aware, however, Kant himself does not explicitly use either the phrase ‘analytic unity of a concept’ or the phrase ‘synthetic unity of a concept’. Nonetheless, although I do not think it would be an easy argument, passages such as the footnote at B133 make it not unreasonable to conclude that Kant does intend to distinguish between the analytic and synthetic unity of a concept. If such a case can be made, the distinction between the analytic and synthetic unity of a concept would correlate with two of the theories of concepts discussed here. On the one hand, what we find in the concepts as marks theory would correspond to the analytic unity of a concept, while the concepts as rules theory would correspond with the synthetic unity of a concept.
- 19.
As an analogy think about flour, water, salt, and yeast as the set of ingredients for bread. These are the essential components or marks of bread. In order to be bread, however, these elements need to be synthetically unified. By themselves, however, the marks for bread do not include any instructions (or rule) for how they go together. This is the job of the recipe. The recipe is not a set of ingredients, but instead it is a rule for how to combine or unify the ingredients into bread.
- 20.
I would like to thank Henry Allison for his helpful suggestions on this issue. His comments, along with what he wrote in chapter 4 of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism (2004), were what enabled me to see how Kant could consistently hold that concepts are sets of marks while they serve as rules at the same time.
- 21.
In the Jäsche Logic Kant tells us that with concepts “their form is generality” (AA 9: 91). The claim that the form of a concept is generality can also be found in other versions of Kant’s logic lectures. For example see The Blomberg Logic §254 (AA 24: 252–254). As far as I am aware, however, it is not until the first Critique that Kant connects the form of generality with serving as a rule.
- 22.
I should note that this may not be the only sense in which concepts serve as rules. In Kant and the Capacity to Judge, Béatrice Longuenesse argues that in addition to a concept serving as “a rule insofar as it is the consciousness of the unity of an act of sensible synthesis or the consciousness of the procedure for generating a sensible intuition,” a concept also serves as a “discursive rule”—that is, “the apodeictic statement of the marks of the concept as a “rule for subsumption” or major premise of a possible syllogism” (Longuenesse 1998, 50). For the purposes of this paper, however, I primarily have in mind only the first sense of serving as a rule.
- 23.
This last example is a passage from the Schematism chapter. A full treatment of Kant’s theory of concepts as rules cannot, I think, avoid a discussion of the Schematism chapter. In particular, it seems clear that the relationship between a concept and its schema (both of which are described as being rules) would have to be explained. Such a full treatment, however, I leave for another occasion.
- 24.
I think it is worth noting that with regard to the first component of Kant’s supposition that objects must conform to cognition (i.e., the supposition that objects must conform to our faculty of intuition), although I don’t know of any, I don’t see any particular reason that someone who holds concepts to be either images or marks couldn’t at the same time accept Kant’s position that space and time are only subjective conditions of human intuition.
- 25.
Hume most clearly makes the identification of objects with impressions in Treatise, 1.1.7.4 (Hume 2000, 18). There he writes: “‘Tis confest, that no object can appear to the senses; or in other words, that no impression can become present to the mind, without being determin’d in its degrees both of quantity and quality.”
- 26.
That is to say, not in conjunction with the concepts as rules theory.
- 27.
I should say that this is clearly the way things would work on Locke’s version. Since all of our ideas come from experience for Locke, it is hard to see how it could be otherwise. Leibniz’s version has the potential to be a good deal more complicated. If substances exist because God actualized them based on their complete concepts being included in the best of all possible worlds, then there is a sense in which the substances conform to their concepts. We should be clear, of course, that this is only the way it works for God. For Leibniz, the cognition of finite substances does not determine the substance. We only know existing things through experience. We do not know substances through their complete concepts.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Karl Ameriks, Gary Banham, Adrian Bardon, Manfred Baum, Corey Dyck, Christian Onof, Marcel Quarfood, Tobias Rosefeldt, Timothy Rosenkoetter, Dennis Schulting, and Yaron Senderowicz for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I would also like to thank Laura S. Keating for her helpful discussions concerning the content of this paper.
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Bayne, S.M. (2010). Marks, Images, and Rules: Concepts and Transcendental Idealism. 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_7
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