Kant's Theory of Knowledge

by H. A. Prichard

Certain points, however, should be noticed. In the first place, Kant is for the moment tacitly ignoring his own theory of knowledge, in accordance with which the object proper, i. e. the thing in itself, is unknowable, and is reverting to the ordinary conception of knowledge as really knowledge of its object. For the elements which are said, in virtue of being related to an object, to agree and to have the unity which constitutes the conception of an object must be elements of an object which we know; for if the assertion that they agree is to be significant, they must be determinate parts or qualities of the object, e. g. the sides of an individual triangle or the impenetrability or shape of an individual body, and therefore it is implied that we know that the object has these parts or qualities. In the second place, both the problem which Kant raises and the clue which he offers for its solution involve an impossible separation of knowledge or a representation from its object. Kant begins with the thought of a phenomenon as a mere representation which, as mental, and as the representation of an object, is just not an object, and asks, 'What is meant by the object of it?' He finds the clue to the answer in the thought that though a representation or idea when considered in itself is a mere mental modification, yet, when considered as related to an object, it is subject to a certain necessity. In fact, however, an idea or knowledge is essentially an idea or knowledge of an object, and we are bound to think of it as such. There is no meaning whatever in saying that the thought of an idea as related to an object carries with it something of necessity, for to say so implies that it is possible to think of it as unrelated to an object. Similarly there is really no meaning in the question, 'What is meant by an object corresponding to knowledge or to an idea?' for this in the same way implies that we can first think of an idea as unrelated to an object and then ask, 'What can be meant by an object corresponding to it?'[43] In the third place, Kant only escapes the absurdity involved in the thought of a mere idea or a mere representation by treating representations either as parts or as qualities of an object. For although he speaks of our cognitions,[44] i. e. of our representations, as being determined by the object, he says that they must agree, i. e. they must have that unity which constitutes the conception of an object, and he illustrates representations by the sides of an individual triangle and the impenetrability and shape of an individual body, which are just as 'objective' as the objects to which they relate. The fact is that he really treats a representation not as his problem requires that it should be treated, i. e. as a representation of something, but as something represented,[45] i. e. as something of which we are aware, viz. a part or a quality of an object. In the fourth place, not only is that which Kant speaks of as related to an object really not a representation, but also—as we see if we consider the fact which Kant has in mind—that to which he speaks of it as related is really not an object but one and the same object to which another so-called representation is related. For what Kant says is that representations as related to an object must agree among themselves. But this statement, to be significant, implies that the object to which various representations are related is one and the same. Otherwise why should the representations agree? In view, therefore, of these last two considerations we must admit that the real thought underlying Kant's statement should be expressed thus: 'We find that the thought that two or more parts or qualities of an object relate to one and the same object carries with it a certain necessity, since this object is considered to be that which prevents these parts or qualities which we know it to possess from being determined at random, because by being related to one and the same object, they must agree among themselves.' The importance of the correction lies in the fact that what Kant is stating is not what he thinks he is stating. He is really stating the implication of the thought that two or more qualities or parts of some object or other, which, as such, already relate to an object, relate to one and the same object. He thinks he is stating the implication of the thought that a representation which in itself has no relation to an object, has relation to an object. And since his problem is simply to determine what constitutes the relatedness to an object of that which in itself is a mere representation, the distinction is important; for it shows that he really elucidates it by an implication respecting something which already has relation to an object and is not a mental modification at all, but a quality or a part of an object.

Kant continues thus: "But it is clear that, since we have to do only with the manifold of our representations, and the x, which corresponds to them (the object), since it is to be something distinct from all our representations, is for us nothing, the unity which the object necessitates can be nothing else than the formal unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifold of representations." [I. e. since the object which produces systematic unity in our representations is after all only the unknown thing in itself, viz. x,[46] any of the parts or qualities of which it is impossible to know, that to which it gives unity can be only our representations and not its own parts or qualities. For, since we do not know any of its parts or qualities, these representations cannot be its parts or qualities. Consequently, the unity produced by this x can only be the formal unity of the combination of the manifold in consciousness.[47]] "Then and then only do we say that we know the object," [i. e. we know that the manifold relates to an object[48]] "if we have produced synthetical unity in the manifold of perception. But this unity would be impossible, if the perception could not be produced by means of such a function of synthesis according to a rule as renders the reproduction of the manifold a priori necessary, and a conception in which the manifold unifies itself possible. Thus we think a triangle as an object, in that we are conscious of the combination of three straight lines in accordance with a rule by which such a perception can at any time be presented. This unity of the rule determines all the manifold and limits it to conditions which make the unity of apperception possible, and the conception of this unity is the representation of the object=x, which I think through the aforesaid predicates of a triangle." [I. e., apparently, 'to conceive this unity of the rule is to represent to myself the object x, i. e. the thing in itself,[49] of which I come to think by means of the rule of combination.']

In this passage several points claim attention. In the first place, it seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that in the second sentence the argument is exactly reversed. Up to this point, it is the thing in itself which produces unity in our representations. Henceforward it is we who produce the unity by our activity of combining the manifold. The discrepancy cannot be explained away, and its existence can only be accounted for by the exigencies of Kant's position. When he is asking 'What is meant by the object (beyond the mind) corresponding to our representations?' he has to think of the unity of the representations as due to the object. But when he is asking 'How does the manifold of sense become unified?' his view that all synthesis is due to the mind compels him to hold that the unity is produced by us. In the second place, the passage introduces a second object in addition to the thing in itself, viz. the phenomenal object, e. g. a triangle considered as a whole of parts unified on a definite principle.[50] It is this object which, as the object that we know, is henceforward prominent in the first edition, and has exclusive attention in the second. The connexion between this object and the thing in itself appears to lie in the consideration that we are only justified in holding that the manifold of sense is related to a thing in itself when we have unified it and therefore know it to be a unity, and that to know it to be a unity is ipso facto to be aware of it as related to a phenomenal object; in other words, the knowledge that the manifold is related to an object beyond consciousness is acquired through our knowledge of its relatedness to an object within consciousness. In the third place, in view of Kant's forthcoming vindication of the categories, it is important to notice that the process by which the manifold is said to acquire relation to an object is illustrated by a synthesis on a particular principle which constitutes the phenomenal object an object of a particular kind. The synthesis which enables us to recognize three lines as an object is not a synthesis based on general principles constituted by the categories, but a synthesis based on the particular principle that the three lines must be so put together as to form an enclosed space. Moreover, it should be noticed that the need of a particular principle is really inconsistent with his view that relation to an object gives the manifold the systematic unity which constitutes the conception of an object, or that at least a [Greek: hysteron proteron] is involved. For if the knowledge that certain representations form a systematic unity justifies our holding that they relate to an object, it would seem that in order to know that they relate to an object we need not know the special character of their unity. Yet, as Kant states the facts, we really have to know the special character of their unity in order to know that they possess systematic unity in general.[51] Lastly, it is easy to see the connexion of this account of an object of representations with the preceding account of the synthesis involved in knowledge. Kant had said that knowledge requires a synthesis of the imagination in accordance with a definite principle, and the recognition of the principle of the synthesis by the understanding. From this point of view it is clear that the aim of the present passage is to show that this process yields knowledge of an object; for it shows that this process yields knowledge of a phenomenal object of a particular kind, e. g. of a triangle or of a body, and that this object as such refers to what after all is the object, viz. the thing in itself.

The position reached by Kant so far is this. Knowledge, as being knowledge of an object, consists in a process by which the manifold of perception acquires relation to an object. This process again is a process of combination of the manifold into a systematic whole upon a definite principle, accompanied by the consciousness in some degree of the act of combination, and therefore also of the acquisition by the manifold of the definite unity which forms the principle of combination. In virtue of this process there is said to be 'unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifold', a phrase which the context justifies us in understanding as a condensed expression for a situation in which (1) the manifold of sense is a unity of necessarily related parts, (2) there is consciousness of this unity, and (3) the consciousness which combines and is conscious of combining the manifold, as being necessarily one and the same throughout this process, is itself a unity.

Kant then proceeds to introduce what he evidently considers the keystone of his system, viz. 'transcendental apperception.'

"There is always a transcendental condition at the basis of any necessity. Hence we must be able to find a transcendental ground of the unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifold of all our perceptions, and therefore also of the conceptions of objects in general, consequently also of all objects of experience, a ground without which it would be impossible to think any object for our perceptions; for this object is no more than that something, the conception of which expresses such a necessity of synthesis."

"Now this original and transcendental condition is no other than transcendental apperception. The consciousness of self according to the determinations of our state in internal sense-perception is merely empirical, always changeable; there can be no fixed or permanent self in this stream of internal phenomena, and this consciousness is usually called internal sense or empirical apperception. That which is necessarily to be represented as numerically identical cannot be thought as such by means of empirical data. The condition which is to make such a transcendental presupposition valid must be one which precedes all experience, and makes experience itself possible."

"Now no cognitions[52] can occur in us, no combination and unity of them with one another, without that unity of consciousness which precedes all data of perception, and by relation to which alone all representation of objects is possible. This pure original unchangeable consciousness I shall call transcendental apperception. That it deserves this name is clear from the fact that even the purest objective unity, viz. that of a priori conceptions (space and time) is only possible by relation of perceptions to it. The numerical unity of this apperception therefore forms the a priori foundation of all conceptions, just as the multiplicity of space and time is the foundation of the perceptions of the sensibility."[53]

The argument is clearly meant to be 'transcendental' in character; in other words, Kant continues to argue from the existence of knowledge to the existence of its presuppositions. We should therefore expect the passage to do two things: firstly, to show what it is which is presupposed by the 'unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifold'[54]; and secondly, to show that this presupposition deserves the title 'transcendental apperception'. Unfortunately Kant introduces 'transcendental apperception' after the manner in which he introduced the 'sensibility', the 'imagination' and the 'understanding', as if it were a term with which every one is familiar, and which therefore needs little explanation. To interpret the passage, it seems necessary to take it in close connexion with the preceding account of the three 'syntheses' involved in knowledge, and to bear in mind that, as a comparison of passages will show, the term 'apperception', which Kant borrows from Leibniz, always has for Kant a reference to consciousness of self or self-consciousness. If this be done, the meaning of the passage seems to be as follows:

'To vindicate the existence of a self which is necessarily one and the same throughout its representations, and which is capable of being aware of its own identity throughout, it is useless to appeal to that consciousness of ourselves which we have when we reflect upon our successive states. For, although in being conscious of our states we are conscious of ourselves we are not conscious of ourselves as unchanging. The self as going through successive states is changing, and even if in fact its states did not change, its identity would be only contingent; it need not continue unchanged. Consequently, the only course possible is to show that the self-consciousness in question is presupposed in any experience or knowledge. Now it is so presupposed. For, as we have already shown, the relation of representations to an object presupposes one consciousness which combines and unifies them, and is at the same time conscious of the identity of its own action in unifying them. This consciousness is the ground of the unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifold. It may fairly be called transcendental, because even a conception which relates to space or time, and therefore is the most remote from sensation, presupposes one consciousness which combines and unifies the manifold of space and time through the conception, and is conscious of the identity of its own action in so doing. It may, therefore, be regarded as the presupposition of all conceiving or bringing a manifold under a conception, and therefore of all knowledge. Consequently, since knowledge is possible, i. e. since the manifold of representations can be related to an object, there must be one self capable of being aware of its own identity throughout its representations.'