A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason'

by Norman Kemp Smith

To this consciousness of the abiding unity of the self Kant also traces the notion of the transcendental object. The latter, he would seem to argue, is formed by analogy from the former.

“This object is nothing else than the subjective representation (of the subject) itself, but made general, for I am the original of all objects.”[770] “The mind, through its original and underived thinking, is itself the pattern (Urbild) of such a synthesis.”[771] “I would not represent anything as outside me, and so make [subjective] appearances into objective experience if the representations were not related to something which is parallel to my ego, and so in that way referred by me to another subject.”[772]

These quotations from the Lose Blätter would seem to contain the key to Kant’s extremely enigmatic statement in A 105, that “the unity which the object makes necessary can be nothing else than the formal unity of consciousness in its synthesis of the manifold of its representations,” and again in A 109, that “this relation [of representations to an object] is nothing else than the necessary unity of consciousness.”[773]

But this does not complete the sum-total of the functions which Kant is at this stage prepared to assign to apperception. It mediates our consciousness of the transcendental object in still another manner, namely, by rendering possible the formation of the empirical concepts which unify and direct its synthetic activities. This is, indeed, the feature in which this form of the deduction diverges most radically from all later positions. Space and time are, it would seem, regarded as being the sole a priori concepts.[774] The instruments through which the unity of apperception acts, and through which the thought of an object becomes possible, are empirical concepts. Such general concepts as “body” or “triangle” serve as rules constraining the synthetic processes of apprehension and reproduction to take place in such unitary fashion as is required for unitary consciousness. The notion of objectivity is specified in terms of the necessities which these empirical concepts thus impose.

“We think a triangle as object in so far as we are conscious of the combination of three straight lines according to a rule by which such an intuition can at all times be generated. This unity of rule determines the whole manifold and limits it to conditions which make the unity of apperception possible; and the concept of this unity [of rule] is the representation of the object.... All knowledge demands a concept, ... and a concept is always, as regards its form, something general, something that serves as a rule. Thus the concept of body serves as a rule to our knowledge of outer appearances, in accordance with the unity of the manifold which is thought through it.... The concept of body necessitates ... the representation of extension, and therewith of impenetrability, shape, etc.”[775]

Such is the manner in which Kant accounts for our concept of the transcendental object. It consists of two main elements: first, the notion of an unknown x, to which representations may be referred; and secondly, the consciousness of this x as exercising compulsion upon the order of our thinking. The former notion is framed on the pattern of the transcendental subject; it is conceived as another but unknown subject. The consciousness of it as a source of external necessity is mediated by the empirical concepts which transcendental apperception also makes possible. And from this explanation of the origin of the concept of the transcendental object Kant derives the proof of its validity.[776] It is indispensable for the realisation by the unitary self of a unitary consciousness.

“This relation [of representations to an object] is nothing else than the necessary unity of consciousness, and therefore also of the synthesis of the manifold, by a common (gemeinschaftlich) functioning of the mind, which unites it in one representation.”[777]

Through instruments empirical in origin, and subjectively necessary, the notion of an objective necessity is rendered possible to the mind.

It is not surprising that Kant did not permanently hold to this view of the empirical concept. The objections are obvious. Such a view of the function of general concepts renders unintelligible their own first formation. For as they are empirical, they can only be acquired by conscious processes that do not involve them. That is to say, consciousness of objects follows upon a prior consciousness in and through which concepts, such as that of body, are discovered and formed. Yet, as the argument claims, general concepts are the indispensable conditions of unitary consciousness. How through a consciousness that is not yet unified can general concepts be formed? Also it is difficult to see how empirical concepts can be viewed as directly conditioned by, and as immediately due to, anything so general as pure apperception. These objections Kant must have come very quickly to recognise. This was the first part of his teaching to be modified. In the immediately succeeding stage,[778] so far as the stages can be reconstructed from the survivals in the Critique, the empirical concepts are displaced once and for all by the a priori categories.

The only sentences which can be regarded as possibly conflicting with the above interpretation are those two (in the second last and in the last paragraphs) in which the phrase “rules a priori” occurs. Even granting (what is at least questionable as regards the first) that the words are meant to be taken together, it does not follow that Kant is here speaking of categories. For contrary to his usual teaching he speaks of the concept of body as a source of necessity. If so, it may well, with equal looseness, be spoken of as a priori. That is indeed done, by implication, in the second and third paragraphs, where he speaks of a rule (referring to “body and triangle”) as making the synthesis of reproduction “a priori necessary.” Such assertions are completely inconsistent with Kant’s Critical teaching, but so is the entire section.