Kant's Theory of Knowledge

by H. A. Prichard

Finally, the conclusion of the paragraph seems definitely to treat both starting-points as really the same.[60] "Thus the conception of a cause is nothing but a synthesis (of the consequent in the time series with other phenomena) according to conceptions; and without such a unity, which has its a priori rule and subjects phenomena to itself, thorough-going and universal and therefore necessary unity of consciousness in the manifold of sense-perceptions would not be met with. But then also these perceptions would belong to no experience, consequently they would have no object, and would be nothing but a blind play of representations, less than a dream."

The fact is that since for Kant the synthesis of representations in accordance with the categories, accompanied by the consciousness of it, is at once the necessary and sufficient condition of the relatedness of representations to an object and of the consciousness of our identity with respect to them, it seems to him to be one and the same thing whether, in vindicating the synthesis, we appeal to the possibility of knowledge or to the possibility of self-consciousness, and it even seems possible to argue, via the synthesis, from knowledge to self-consciousness and vice versa.

Nevertheless, it remains true that the vindication of the categories is different, according as it is based upon the possibility of relating representations to an object or upon the possibility of becoming self-conscious with respect to them. It also remains true that Kant vindicates the categories in both ways. For while, in expounding the three so-called syntheses involved in knowledge, he is vindicating the categories from the point of view of knowledge, when he comes to speak of transcendental apperception, of which the central characteristic is the consciousness of self involved, there is a shifting of the centre of gravity. Instead of treating representations as something which can become related to an object, he now treats them as something of which, as belonging to a self, the self must be capable of being conscious as its own, and argues that a synthesis in accordance with the categories is required for this self-consciousness. It must be admitted then—and the admission is only to be made with reluctance—that when Kant reaches transcendental apperception, he really adopts a new starting-point,[61] and that the passage which introduces transcendental apperception by showing it to be implied in knowledge[62] only serves to conceal from Kant the fact that, from the point of view of the deduction of the categories, he is really assuming without proof the possibility of self-consciousness with respect to all our representations, as a new basis for argument.

The approach to the categories from the side of self-consciousness is, however, more prominent in the second edition, and consequently we naturally turn to it for more light on this side of Kant's position. There Kant vindicates the necessity of the synthesis from the side of self-consciousness as follows:[63]

"[1.] It must be possible that the 'I think' should accompany all my representations; for otherwise something would be represented in me which could not be thought; in other words, the representation would be either impossible or at least for me nothing. [2.] That representation which can be given before all thought is called perception. All the manifold of perception has therefore a necessary relation to the 'I think' in the same subject in which this manifold is found. [3.] But this representation[64] [i. e. the 'I think'] is an act of spontaneity, i. e. it cannot be regarded as belonging to sensibility. I call it pure apperception, to distinguish it from empirical apperception, or original apperception also, because it is that self-consciousness which, while it gives birth to the representation 'I think', which must be capable of accompanying all others and is one and the same in all consciousness, cannot itself be accompanied by any other.[65] [4.] I also call the unity of it the transcendental unity of self-consciousness, in order to indicate the possibility of a priori knowledge arising from it. For the manifold representations which are given in a perception would not all of them be my representations, if they did not all belong to one self-consciousness, that is, as my representations (even though I am not conscious of them as such), they must necessarily conform to the condition under which alone they can stand together in a universal self-consciousness, because otherwise they would not all belong to me. From this original connexion much can be concluded."

[5.] "That is to say, this thorough-going identity of the apperception of a manifold given in perception contains a synthesis of representations,[66] and is possible only through the consciousness of this synthesis.[67] [6.] For the empirical consciousness which accompanies different representations is in itself fragmentary, and without relation to the identity of the subject. [7.] This relation, therefore, takes place not by my merely accompanying every representation with consciousness, but by my adding one representation to another, and being conscious of the synthesis of them. [8.] Consequently, only because I can connect a manifold of given representations in one consciousness, is it possible for me to represent to myself the identity of consciousness in these representations; i. e. the analytical unity of apperception is possible only under the presupposition of a synthetical unity. [9.] The thought, 'These representations given in perception belong all of them to me' is accordingly just the same as, 'I unite them in one self-consciousness, or at least can so unite them;' [10.] and although this thought is not itself as yet the consciousness of the synthesis of representations, it nevertheless presupposes the possibility of this synthesis; that is to say, it is only because I can comprehend the manifold of representations in one consciousness, that I call them all my representations; for otherwise I should have as many-coloured and varied a self as I have representations of which I am conscious. [11.] Synthetical unity of the manifold of perceptions, as given a priori, is therefore the ground of the identity of apperception itself, which precedes a priori all my determinate thinking. [12.] But connexion does not lie in the objects, nor can it be borrowed from them through perception and thereby first taken up into the understanding, but it is always an operation of the understanding which itself is nothing more than the faculty of connecting a priori, and of bringing the manifold of given representations under the unity of apperception, which principle is the highest in all human knowledge."

[13.] "Now this principle of the necessary unity of apperception is indeed an identical, and therefore an analytical, proposition, but nevertheless it declares a synthesis of the manifold given in a perception to be necessary, without which the thorough-going identity of self-consciousness cannot be thought. [14.] For through the Ego, as a simple representation, is given no manifold content; in perception, which is different from it, a manifold can only be given, and through connexion in one consciousness it can be thought. An understanding, through whose self-consciousness all the manifold would eo ipso be given, would perceive; our understanding can only think and must seek its perception in the senses. [15.] I am, therefore, conscious of the identical self, in relation to the manifold of representations given to me in a perception, because I call all those representations mine, which constitute one. [16.] But this is the same as to say that I am conscious a priori of a necessary synthesis of them, which is called the original synthetic unity of apperception, under which all representations given to me stand, but also under which they must be brought through a synthesis."[68]

Though this passage involves many difficulties, the main drift of it is clear. Kant is anxious to establish the fact that the manifold of sense must be capable of being combined on principles, which afterwards turn out to be the categories, by showing this to be involved in the fact that we must be capable of being conscious of ourselves as the identical subject of all our representations. To do this, he seeks to prove in the first paragraph that self-consciousness in this sense must be possible, and in the second that this self-consciousness presupposes the synthesis of the manifold.

Examination of the argument, however, shows that the view that self-consciousness must be possible is, so far as Kant is concerned,[69] an assumption for which Kant succeeds in giving no reason at all, and that even if it be true, it cannot form a basis from which to deduce the possibility of the synthesis.

Before, however, we attempt to prove this, it is necessary to draw attention to three features of the argument. In the first place, it implies a somewhat different account of self-consciousness to that implied in the passages of the first edition which we have already considered. Self-consciousness, instead of being the consciousness of the identity of our activity in combining the manifold, is now primarily the consciousness of ourselves as identical subjects of all our representations, i. e. it is what Kant calls the analytical unity of apperception; and consequently it is somewhat differently related to the activity of synthesis involved in knowledge. Instead of being regarded as the consciousness of this activity, it is regarded as presupposing the consciousness of the product of this activity, i. e. of the connectedness[70] of the manifold produced by the activity, this consciousness being what Kant calls the synthetical unity of apperception.[71] In the second place, it is plain that Kant's view is not that self-consciousness involves the consciousness of our representations as a connected whole, but that it involves the consciousness of them as capable of being connected by a synthesis. Yet, if it is only because I can connect (and therefore apprehend as connected) a manifold of representations in one consciousness, that I can represent to myself the identity of consciousness in these representations, self-consciousness really requires the consciousness of our representations as already connected; the mere consciousness of our representations as capable of being connected would not be enough. The explanation of the inconsistency seems to lie in the fact that the synthetic unity of which Kant is thinking is the unity of nature. For, as Kant of course was aware, in our ordinary consciousness we do not apprehend the interconnexion of the parts of nature in detail, but only believe that there is such an interconnexion; consequently he naturally weakened the conclusion which he ought to have drawn, viz. that self-consciousness presupposes consciousness of the synthesis, in order to make it conform to the facts of our ordinary consciousness. Yet, if his argument is to be defended, its conclusion must be taken in the form that self-consciousness presupposes consciousness of the actual synthesis or connexion and not merely of the possibility of it. In the third place, Kant twice in this passage[72] definitely makes the act of synthesis, which his argument maintains to be the condition of consciousness of the identity of ourselves, the condition of the identity of ourselves. The fact is that, on Kant's view, the act of synthesis of the representations is really a condition of their belonging to one self, the self being presupposed to be a self capable of self-consciousness.[73]