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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume II: A Kantian Conception 63 as I think necessary in order to anchor my own discussion of subsentential expressions, in subsequent sections of this chapter, in my own understanding of Kant's view. So I shall largely confine my remarks here to further examination of passage (C), above, which is from Kant's introduction to the Table of Categories. Brandom makes some significant translation choices and edits to passage (C). The original runs as follows: (C') (1) Dieselbe Funktion, welche den verschiedenen Vorstellungen in einem Urteile Einheit gibt, (2) die gibt auch der bloßen Synthesis verschiedene[r] Vorstellungen in einer Anschauung Einheit, (3) welche, allgemein ausgedrückt, der reine Verstandesbegriff heißt. (4) Derselbe Verstand also, und zwar durch eben dieselben Handlungen, wodurch er in Begriffen, vermittelst der analytischen Einheit, die logische Form eines Urteils zustand brachte, (5) bringt auch, vermittelst der synthetischen Einheit des Mannigfaltigen in der Anschauung überhaupt, in seine Vorstellungen einen transzendentalen Inhalt, (6) weswegen sie reine Verstandesbegriffe heißen, die a priori auf Objekte gehen, (7) welches die allgemeine Logik nicht leisten kann. In this passage Kant twice deploys what he in the Prolegomena calls the "analytic" or "regressive method" (P, Ak. 264, 274, 276 fn), of beginning with the empirical fact of judging and working backward to its necessary preconditions: first in the transition from (C'.1) to (C'.2); and second in the transition from (C'.4) to (C'.5). Let us take each numbered phrase in turn. (C.1) is a straightforward translation of (C'.1). (C.2) is not quite a straightforward translation of (C'.2), because the primary meaning of bloß is "bare" or "naked," not "mere." By modifying the noun "synthesis" with the adjective "bare," Kant means to call attention to the distinction between the unmediated and unadorned cognitive operation of gathering diverse representations together simpliciter, and the higher-level operation of giving them cognitive unity. For this it is not sufficient that the representations simply land, as it were, in a heap in inner sense. In order to achieve cognitive unity, the representations must be gathered and sorted according to an organizing principle that the concept under which they are gathered supplies. Hence (C'.1) plus (C'2.) together say that there is one function that does two things. It unifies various representations into one judgment. It also unifies the bare synthesis of various representations into one intuition - a necessary condition for judgment. Kant says at 1C, A 19/B 33 that, regardless of the kind and means by which cognition relates to objects, intuition is in unmediated relation to them; and that all thought is directed at intuition. Hence all thought is directed at our conceptually unmediated relation to objects. And at 1C, A 68/B 93 Kant defines a "function" as the unity of the act of ordering various representations under one common representation (Kant uses the term "representation" to refer to any mental contents (1C, A 320/B 376), so we must rely on context to © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
