Kant and the apriority of space

Philosophical Review

Volumn 107, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 179-223

  Warren, Daniel ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 60949882194     PISSN: 00318108     EISSN: 15581470     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2998483     Document Type: Article

References (70)

1. P. F. Strawson, Individuals (London: Methuen, 1959). Yet another role for space, or rather, for space and time, in individuating objects is discussed by Strawson early on in chapter 1 of Individuals. Space and time-more specifically, a unified space and time-allow us to go beyond the limits of what we can identify demonstratively, to make identifying reference to any spatiotemporal particular. This role for space does not figure prominently in the literature on Kant that I know of.
2. Henry Allison, Kant's Transcendental Idealism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 82-86. (Throughout the paper, all quotations from this book will be indicated parenthetically by page number.)
3. See also Paul Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 346;
4. Robert B. Pippin, Kant's Theory of Form (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 60-62;
5. T. E. Wilkerson, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 24.
6. Also see Jill Vance Buroker, Space and Incongruence (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1981), 76, for a similar approach with regard to the corresponding argument of Kant's pre-critical Inaugural Dissertation.
7. In other words, these conditions cannot be merely logical conditions on representing objects, that is, they go beyond requiring conformity with the principle of contradiction.
8. He writes, "By [ontological conditions] I mean conditions of the possibility of the being of things ⋯ an ontological condition is, by definition, a condition of the possibility of things as they are in themselves (in the transcendental sense)" (11).
9. References to the Critique of Pure Reason are given by pagination in the first (A) and second (B) editions. In quotations, I have followed the translation of Norman Kemp Smith. References to other works by Kant are given by volume and page number in the Berlin Akadesnie edition (cited as Ak.). In quotations from the Inaugural Dissertation, I have followed the translation by John Handyside, as revised by L. W. Beck, in Kant's Latin Writings, ed. Lewis White Beck (New York: Peter Lang, 1986) 145-88.
10. I have been asked how we should understand the locution "the representation of space," which is used by Kant and also by commentators. In particular, there are questions concerning the role here of the definite article: Would the switch to the indefinite article have any significance? Should the locution be read as "the typical representation of space"? I will attempt to address the questions at a more general level by explaining the locution, "the representation of, " as it occurs within the expression "the representation of ⋯ presupposes the representation of-." This expression should probably be understood as saying that possession of a certain representational capacity presupposes the possession of some other representational capacity, or spelled out further, as saying that x's being able to represent ⋯ presupposes his or her being able to represent-. Similarly, talk of the formation or origin of the representation of ⋯ should be understood as concerning the formation or origin of the corresponding representational capacity.
11. Allison, Kant's Transcendental Idealism, 86.
12. Note that as far as Allison's version of this argument goes, "is presupposed by" could be replaced by "is a necessary condition of."
13. It is not, however, supposed to be a logically necessary condition, for Allison emphasizes that (la*) is not logically or analytically true: there is, he says, no contradiction in the idea of a nonspatial awareness of things as distinct from us or from each other (83-84).
14. In (i), we might be inclined to interpret the expression "outside me" as meaning distinct from me (or distinct from my mental states), for this would bring the word "outside," as used here, into line with the contrast between "outer" and "inner" sense. Allison appears to be interpreting "outside me" in this way (83). But, if anything, Kant is signaling that, here, "outside me" is not to be understood in a way that corresponds to the idea of "outer" sense. In explaining something's being "outside me" by its being "in another region of space from that in which I find myself," Kant certainly suggests that there is a region of space "in which I find myself" and which is, in the appropriate sense, not "outside me." In the corre sponding argument in the Inaug Dissertation, he speaks of "the space in which I myself am" (Ak. 2, 402). In these passages, Kant may well intend this to mean the space occupied by his body, or he may have in mind the less determinate notion of a region of space referred to as "here," in contrast to those which are called "there." Either way, the contrast between what is outside me and what is not is a contrast between regions of space, or between what is in one region and what is in another. And this is clearly incompatible with the sense of "outside" that is at work in contrasting outer and inner sense, where the expression "things outside me" just sig nifies "things which are to be found in space" (A373), and what is given through inner sense-my self and its states-is not presented as spatial at all, but only as temporal. A number of questions remain, but one thing that is certain is that in the premise of the first apriority argument, Kant is using "outside me" in a specifically spatial sense. And this is a sense that does not even line up with the idea of "outer" in "outer sense." Thus, above and beyond its absence from Kant's explicit statement of the premise associated with (i), the latter notion of "outer," the idea of being distinct from my mental states, seems a poor place to start even for spelling out what might lie behind this premise. In any case, this idea engages a set of issues distinct from those involved in the conditions for representing ob jects as being distinct from one another. My chief concern in the critical part of this paper is with the latter. However, in putting forward my own interpretation of the first apriority argument, I give a reading that accounts equally for the "outside me" and the "outside one another" parts of the premise.
15. Kant's gloss on (ii) is "and accordingly [in order to represent them] as not only different but as in different places." Allison takes this to suggest an emphasis on the numerical rather than the mere qualitative distinctness of things. But the emphasis is on "in different places." If Kant is placing stress on numerical distinctness here, it is that of places (regions of space), not that of the things in space.
16. Similer textual criticisms of the view that "outside" must be taken in a nonspatial sense have been made by Lorne Falkenstein in his Kant's Intuilionism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), 164. For further discussion of Falkenstein, see note 33.
17. This difference, the difference between the individuation of places (which Kant emphasizes) and the individuation of objects in those places (which he does not mention), has already come up. For, as I pointed out in note 11, Kant talks of "different places" in the version of the argument found in the Critique. (And there is also talk of the "same time" or "dif ferent times" in the corresponding argument about time.) The difference between focusing on objects in space and focusing on the regions of space they occupy will be important in the alternative interpretation of the argument to be presented later.
18. However at that point in the Critique, the significance of this idea depends on the fact that the representation of space has been shown to be a priori; it can't provide the material for an argument that it is a priori.
19. I am limiting the range of 'at any given time' to times when both a and b exist.
20. Perhaps the claim would need to be restricted in certain ways. See Locke's Essay bk. 2, chap. 27, §2. So, for example, in defending the claim, it might be required that a and b be, or be conceived as, what Locke calls "bodies," that is, "particles of matter" or "parcels of matter." Without some such restriction, the claim would be subject to the objection that a sculpture and the bronze that makes it up, though they occupy the same place, are distinct (because, for example, the piece of bronze existed before the sculpture came into existence). However, the bronze and the sculpture are not distinct parcels of matter (since the temporally extended sculpture is not identical to any temporally extended parcel of matter-nor, for that matter, is the bronze, which was formed when certain elements were combined in certain proportions). So this does not constitute a counterexample to the restricted version of the claim.
21. It is not clear whether it really would be sufficient. A lot would depend on what counts as being able to distinguish objects. If being able to distinguish means having a certain standing cognitive capacity, then even if one were in excruciating pain one could be said to be able to distinguish objects-though in another very natural sense one might not "be able" to distinguish objects or for that matter make judgments at all. One might have an ability (capacity) but because of some hindrance (here, the pain) one might not have the ability to use it. The sufficiency at stake here might be sufficiency for possession of an ability in the first sense but not the second. Countless factors, known only empirically, would undoubtedly enter into an elaboration of a condition sufficient for "being able" in the second sense.
22. In principle we might also do this by considering a case of qualitative difference without numerical difference, but of course this is ruled out by the law of indiscernibility of identicals, which (unlike the more controversial identity of indiscernibles) is generally regarded as a part of the logic of identity.
23. Also relevant, to give Leibniz his due, is the assumption that such spatial differences don't by themselves entail (assuming God acts in accordance with his benevolence) any qualitative differences. It is precisely this assumption that Leibniz would deny.
24. I am thinking specifically of Strawson, but this extends to many others commentators who have broad disagreements with him.
25. For example, Wilkerson, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, 24-25;
26. also see Ralph Walker (Kant (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), 30-34), who expresses doubts about the success of this strategy; this tendency does not seem to be present in the account of the Aesthetic given by Strawson himself.
27. But although it might seem natural, I believe that it is nevertheless misguided as an interpretation of Kant's core intentions. It seems to me that, for Kant, the mere idea of re-identification over time would again just be a matter of applying the categories of quantity The category of substance that Kant associates with the notion of permanence is not merely that of something that is temporally extended, but rather of something that must always have existed and always will. It is only this less modest idea that Kant thought capable of undergirding the kind of conservation laws he saw in science. The weakening seen in such interpretations has a parallel in their construal of Kant's arguments as showing the need for sufficient regularity in experience to make possible the subjective-objective distinction, rather than showing the need for exceptionless laws. Clearly there are advantages to this more modest aim, but it is unclear that they can do justice to Kant's overriding interest in justifying certain central aspects of science as he understood it.
28. Jonathan Bennett makes a related point. Sec his Kant's Analytic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 62.
29. Shortly after presenting the first apriority argument, Kant goes on to argue that the representation of space is an intuition, rather than a concept. However in the present account, I will abstract, as much as is possible, from whether the representation of space is conceptual or intuitive. This will better allow me to isolate the considerations that are at work in the first apriority argument, and to determine the extent to which they can be separated from those that are characteristic of the "intuition arguments."
30. See for example Allison, Kant's Transcendental Idealism, 83, 84-85;
31. Paul Guyer, Kant and the Clairns of Knowledge, 346;
32. D. P. Dryer, Kant's Solution for Verification in Metaphysics (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1966), 173- 74;
33. Rolf P. Horstmann, "Space as Intuition and Geometry," Ratio 18 (1976): 20-21;
34. P. F. Strawson, The Bounds of Sense (London: Methuen, 1966), 58;
35. Wilkerson, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, 23.
36. Although it makes sense to speak of the "origin" of either a concept or an intuition, it is probably unacceptable, on Kant's view, to speak of our "forming" an intuition (since Kant regards intuitive representations as given to us). I take it, however, that the account of the representation of space that Kant is rebutting in the first apriority argument is one on which this representation is not only empirical but also conceptual. I discuss this point further in note 42.
37. When the brightness-line, for example, is represented by a region of real space, that is, when it is represented graphically, the means of representation itself incorporates the relevant formal features.
38. Kant would not have to regard this as committing one to the absoluteness of the corresponding space. We may represent objects as occupying a certain set of regions in that space, or we may represent them as occupying some other set of such regions. And, renouncing absolute space, we may decide that the choice between these two alternatives involves a degree of arbitrariness. However, these alternative representations may be regarded as equally acceptable, as far as their "objective content" is concerned. Now, no matter which alternative is employed, the place that is occupied is represented as something distinct from the object that occupies it. In this sense, the denial of absolute space, for Kant, does not undermine the propriety of representing a place or a region of space as something distinct from the object that occupies it. We may legitimately think of a region of space as something that is one and the same, though it be occupied now by one object, now by another, and now by no object at all.
39. These considerations may involve a mathematical characterization of the relations. For example, we might think of one object as brighter than another by a certain degree. This would then correspond to the thought of one object's occupying a place (in brightness-space) which is a certain (brightness-spatial) distance from that occupied by the other. But having a thought of the first sort (which, for Kant, is a matter of regarding two objects simply as bearing a relation to one another) does not presuppose that we have thoughts of the second sort (in which we regard the objects as bearing relations to something further-places-which themselves bear a certain relation to one another). I will need to employ some form of mathematical representation in order to reason about degrees of brightness, but the mere application of mathematics to an arbitrary relation R between objects does not by itself involve the representation of the corresponding regions of an R-space which the objects so related are regarded as occupying, or the representation of the larger R-space of which these regions are parts. A two-dimensional graphical representation of degree of brightness (y axis) against time (x axis) may be regarded as a series of representations (lines parallel to the y axis) of brightness-space at successive times. But it need not be regarded in this way simply to apply mathematics to the relation "brighter than." It can simply be thought of as a representation of degrees to which an object is or can be bright, and of degrees by which one object is or can be brighter than another. And this would be a matter of thinking of objects simply as having these properties or as bearing these relations to one another, not as bearing a further relation (occupying, being in or at) to something distinct, namely, regions of brightness-space.
40. Charles Parsons has given approximately the same formulation of the presupposition claim in his answer to the "proves too much" objection. See his "The Transcendental Aesthetic," in The Cambridge Companion to Kant, ed. Paul Guyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 68.
41. This more determinate form of the presupposition claim is quite explicit in the Inaugural Dissertation version of the first apriority argument, and it is clearly detectable in the relevant paragraphs of the Critique's Metaphysical Expositions for space and for time. In both works, the transition from the representation of spatial relations between objects to the representation of space is made by means of the representation of the objects as occupying places, that is, regions of space. (And a corresponding claim can be made for time.) As far as the inference from (1") to (1') is concerned, Kant may in fact be working with a more specific form of (1"), namely, the claim: In these passages, it seems evident that Rant is making a move from representing things as temporally or spatially related to a presupposed representation of the distinctness/sameness of the times or spaces which these things occupy. In representing objects as outside one another, we represent them as occupying distinct spaces. In representing states/events as successive, we represent them as occupying distinct times; and in representing them as simultaneous, we represent them as occupying the same time. The corresponding passages of the Metaphysical Exposition in the Critique are more elliptical. But once one reads them in the light of the Inaugural Dissertation, their references to sameness or difference of times, and difference in spaces can be seen as playing the same argumentative role as in the earlier work. Thus, in moving from (1"), or rather from (1"*), to (1'), Kant may have in mind the idea that the representation of places or regions of space as distinct presupposes the representation of the space of which they are parts. Arthur Melnick has discussed this idea in, Kant's Analogies of Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 9-11.
42. Note that the use of the expression "the space of which these spaces or places [ that is, the spaces or places occupied by the objects we had represented as spatially related] are parts" in (1') should not be understood as requiring that there be a single all-encompassing space. (Compare: "the house in which these people live," which does not suggest that there is a single all-encompassing house.) In fact, nothing in this line of argument would rule out that there might be a plurality of unconnected (spatially unrelated) spaces. And this allows us to see the extent to which considerations at work in the first apriority argument are separable from those which drive the "intuition arguments," specifically the "singularity" of space. The possibility that there exists a plurality of unconnected spaces is in fact acknowledged in Kant's early pre-critical thought on this matter (Ak. 1, 21-5, 414), and there it is closely tied to his insistence on the possibility that there exists a plurality of (causally) unconnected worlds. (This tie is broken in the later pre-critical period-in the Inaugural Disser tation, where Kant develops most of his "critical" views about space and time.)
43. Given the unacceptability of the analogue to (1") for the case of "brighter than" relations, it is irrelevant whether it would or would not entail the analog of (1').
44. An account in some ways similar to that presented here has been given by Lorne Falkenstein in his book Kant's Intuitionism, at 160-74 (cited in note 12). (The present account was developed independently of Falkenstein's: his view of the first apriority argument did not come to my attention until a late stage of revisions of this paper.) Falkenstein develops the notion of a color space, which plays a role in his account like that played by the notion of a brightness-line in mine. For he, too, argues against those who claim that the premise of the first apriority argument is tautologous if "outside" is interpreted in a spatial sense. And to show how this premise is properly to be understood, he appeals to colors where I use the example of brightness. However, the underlying point of these two examples of "spaces" is different, and consequentl so is the positive view of the premise's content and of the special feature of spatial relations that the first apriority argument is concerned to highlight. I will restrict myself here to bringing out the central contrasts between Falkenstein's account and my own. On Falkenstein's view, as I understand it, color relations can be determined merely by inspecting the colors and comparing the-in. Based on these relations, we can then go on to arrange these colors in what is in some sense a color space. And so these color relations can be determined in dependent of "an articulated experience" of the colors "already arranged in the order," that is, the color space. By contrast, for spatial relations, "it is rather an articulated experience of the elements already arranged in the order that comes first" (171). In this way, Falkenstein is presenting Kant in relation to what he calls a "sensationist opposition," which is committed to the idea that spatial relations can be ascribed by inspecting and comparing the relata. And he sees the central point of the first apriority argument as being that the representation of space cannot be abstracted from the "matter of appearance," from the "elements" related. Rather, it is "abstracted from something that is given in sensory experience over and above this matter" (173), namely "a form of arrangement" (174). There are significant differences between this approach to the first apriority argument and the one I have been developing. There may be some differences in our conceptions of color/brightness space and of what it is that occupies it. But I think the more fundamental differences derive from Falkenstein's focus on the contrast between inspecting and comparing the relata, on the one hand, and experiencing the relata arranged in a certain manner, on the other. On my view, the point of the first apriority argument is not specifically to deny that spatial relations can be attributed to things based on an inspection and comparison of the relata, but to deny any account of the representation of spatial relations between things which does not involve, in addition, representing these things as being in, as occupying, something different from them, namely regions of space or locations. The contrast with brightness-space does not concern the question of whether "brighter than" relations can be ascribed merely by inspecting and comparing the relata. Nor does it concern the question of whether they can be ascribed without first experiencing the relata as having some "form of arrangement." On my account of what is central to the first apriority argument, the relevant difference hetween "brighter than" relations and spatial relations is that in order to attribute "brighter than" relations to things it is not necessary, in addition, to represent regions of brightness-space which they are regarded as occupying. And, in principle, that might be the case even if it were necessary to experience the relata as arranged or ordered in some manner.
45. Leibniz's Fifth Paper, §47, in The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, ed. H. G. Alexander (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956), 69-72. By 'subjects' in the passage quoted, Leibniz is referring to the things that were originally characterized as bearing relations such as distance and situation, that is, bodies. Leibniz is not here concerned to ask the further question, how we form the notion of these relations to begin with. In the view Kant is opposing, that is where the specifically empiricist component would enter.
46. This is not to deny that, from the claim that the representation of spatial relations presupposes that of space, Kant might draw the further conclusion that outer experience presupposes the representation of space. For he may have in mind that outer experience presupposes the representation of spatial relations, and this would lead him to this conclusion. Indeed, Kant draws this conclusion near the end of the Inaugural Dissertation version of the apriority argument. And he may be pointing to the same consequence at the very end of the first apriority argument in the Critique when he says "this outer experience is itself possible at all only through that representation [ that is, the representation of space]." (I say "may be" because it is not clear whether, by the expression this outer experience' Kant is really referring to outer experience in general, or to something more specific.)
47. For Leibniz, spatial relations are reducible to dynamical relations, and ultimately, to intrinsic monadic properties. Thus, on Leibniz's view, spatial relations, properly understood, would not presuppose the representation of space.
48. I take it that the singularity of space is closely tied to Euclid's first postulate (that between any two points a line may be drawn), and that the infinity of space is closely tied to his second postulate (that any line can be extended). At the least, it can be clearly seen that the second postulate will require the infinity of space, and that the first will require its singularity (if we understand the singularity of space as ruling out that there are two or more disconnected spaces, and if we assume that there is any space at all).
49. We can distinguish two interpretations, a weaker and a stronger, of the idea that the modal features of spatial relations between objects presuppose the representation of the space the objects occup On the weaker, the point is that we cannot recognize that certain modal features obtain without presupposing a representation of space; on the stronger, we cannot even represent these modal features without presupposing it. Assuming that these modal features are geometrical in character, the view of Michael Friedman, presented in "Kant's Theory of Geometry," Philosophical Review 94 (1985): 455-506, would entail a view of the second, stronger sort (486)-at least if we understand 'represent' as meaning represent in such a way that the representation can figure in (rigorous) reasoning concerning spatial relations.
50. I have already characterized the analogous claim for the representation of the feature "brighter than," and I said that Kant is committed to rejecting it. Perhaps the idea, when it comes to the representation "red," would be that just as we might conceive of a brightness-line, we might also imagine a "redness-point." This would be a zero-dimensional space (a point), which all and only red objects are said to "occupy," which is said to be "empty" just in case there are no red objects, and which is something distinct from an object that occupies it. Needless to say, the representation of a "redness-point" is not presupposed simply by the representation of objects as red.
51. See Allison, Kant's Transcendental Idealism, 84-85.
52. Henry Allison, The Kant-Eberhard Gontroversy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 35-36.
53. Allison, Kant's Transcendental Idealism, 82, points out that Kemp Smith and Paton take this approach.
54. Although Kant will in the end argue that the representation of space is an intuition (a singular, immediate representation) rather than a concept (a general representation, which functions "by way of certain marks [Merkmale]"), a discussion of the idea of concept formation is going to be needed to evaluate the significance of the first apriority argument. For the view that Kant is rebutting there should probably be seen as one on which the representation of space is empirical and conceptual. It is a view according to which we start by forming a concept of a spatial relation (by deriving it from perceptions and thus from empirical intuitions of the objects so related), and ultimately form a representation of a space which is not itself a part of any (larger) space. Let us call such a space a "space-whole." This latter representation of a space-whole would not be counted as an intuition in Kant's sense, for it would not satisfy the "immediacy" criterion: it would not count as a representation by means of which something is immediately presented to us. And one way of seeing why this representation might be considered general (conceptual) is that, as noted earlier, nothing in the procedure by which this representation is formed rules out the possibility that there could exist a plurality of (unconnected) space-wholes-a possibility Kant acknowledges in his work on these issues early in the pre-critical period (Ak. 1, 21-25, 414). I briefly discussed these issues earlier-in the last paragraph of note 31.
55. What is centrally at stake in considering whether a concept has a legitimate use is the question of whether we are capable of justifiably applying this concept to an object. (I will understand the expression "justifiable application" in such a way that it entails that the application is correct, in the sense that the concept is being applied to something which in fact falls under it.) I take it that, for Kant, such a capacity is needed if we are to be capable of knowledge which employs that concept. And as far as its role in knowledge is concerned, the question of whether we are capable of the justifiable application of a concept will, on Kant's view come down to the question of whether corresponding objects enter into experience. Now, there are two points to be made about what is meant when we ask whether the objects of a concept are experienceable. First, the objects must accord with conditions derived from the form of our conceptual and our sensible faculties, but need not conform to the more contingent aspects of our sensibility-its actual degree of sensitivity and discriminatory power. So, a two-sided plane figure is not in this sense experienceable. But some very subtle kind of matter or something extremely small, for example, could still count as experienceable, for, as Kant puts it at A226/B273, "we should, were our senses more refined, come also in an experience upon the immediate empirical intuition of it. The grossness of our senses does not in any way decide the form of possible experience in general." (As Randall Amano has pointed out to me, a question may be raised about claims like "There are no two-sided plane figures," for this certainly seems like something Kant would count as knowledge. There are several ways in which Kant might address this kind of question, but I will not pursue them here.) The second point about what is intended in asking whether a concept has experienceable objects is that we are asking not just about actual objects but about possible ones as well. The sense of "possible" here is not just logical or analytic possibility (accordance with the principle of contradiction), but rather what Kant calls "real" possibility. Accordance with the forms of our cognitive faculties is a necessary condition of real possibilit but as Kant understands it, this is certainly not sufficient. What more would be needed is obscure, and the degree of clarification that is possible would in any case require longer discussion than is appropriate here.
56. Does this mean that in the case of concepts abstracted from experience, the question of origin (which concerns what Kant calls the "quid facti") collapses into the question about justification (which concerns the "quid juris")? No, they are still distinct. For, in the first place, it remains true that an answer to the first question does not, in general, settle the second, and it is hard to see how that could be the case if the questions themselves were the same. Moreover, for concepts abstracted from experience, an answer to the former question (origin) leads to an answer to the latter (justification) only because we can draw on certain presuppositions, which Kant seems to treat as uncontested, about what it takes to justify such empirical concepts. Thus Kant writes that "many empirical concepts are employed without question from anyone." He says about such concepts, "experience is always available for the proof of their objective reality" (A84/B116). Again we see here a move from a quid facti (the experience that we have) to a quid juris (the objective reality of a concept). Clearly there are some presuppositions involved here about what it takes to justify our use of these concepts. These presuppositions seem to be tied, for Kant, to a view about the content we may claim for these concepts, to the fact that we believe ourselves "to be justified in appropriating to [these concepts] a meaning, an ascribed significance" (A84/B116-17). However, in these passages, Kant does not make these presuppositions explicit. And this is because, in the section from which these passages are drawn, Kant's chief concern is with the special problem in justifying our use of a priori concepts. He is concerned with the gap between origin and justification which opens up when we shift our attention away from concepts that are empirical. And so from this perspective (which to some extent I adopt in this part of the paper), he is able to treat the case of empirical concepts abstracted from experience as unproblematic, and the transition from origin to justification in such cases as, in effect, seamless. Similarly what Kant calls an "empirical deduction," an account that "shows the manner in which a concept is acquired through experience and through reflection on experience" (A85/B117), concerns only the quid facti, that is, "[the concept's] de facto mode of origination." Kant's main purpose in bringing up the notion of an empirical deduction is to point out that it can be of no value in addressing the problems specific to justifying concepts that are a priori. Arid similarly from this perspective, it can be treated as leading directly to an answer to the question of justification when the concept in question has been abstracted from experience. But again, this does not mean the question it answers has simply been identified with the question of justification.
57. Specifically, when a representation is said to have been "abstracted" from experience, the assessment of its legitimacy is particularly straightforward. In abstracting, we form a representation of a property, or perhaps of a relation, as a result of actually being presented with objects bearing that property or relation. And here, "presented" is understood in such a way that, when questioned about these concepts' legitimacy, we can say things like "experience is always available for the proof of their objective reality" (A84/B116) and "affords abundant opportunity ⋯ of verifying the objective validity of such a concept" (A91/B123). However, it should not be ruled out that a representation could be empirical and yet not abstracted in this sense. It could be derived from experience by a more complex route. A representation, though not itself abstracted from experience, could be formed from representations that have been. (A simple example is the concept of a golden mountain.) In such cases, the assessment of its legitimacy is less straightforward than it was for cases of simple abstraction, and it may involve an evaluation of the procedures by which that representation was formed from others whose legitimacy is not in question. That is, we would have to ask to what extent and under what conditions these procedures preserve the validity of various uses of representations.
58. If this is correct, then it is likely that, for Kant, the question about the origin of a concept is not a request for the actual history of that representation, for example, in a given individual. It is more a question of whether that concept could have been formed in a certain way (given the cognitive faculties we have), a question of whether that concept allows of a certain kind of origin-for example, whether it is abstractable from experience. Correspondingly, Kant's point about the concept of cause is not that it has not as a matter of fact been abstracted from experience, but rather that it could not be. Thus, I take it that the central contrast here is not between concepts that have and concepts that have not actually been abstracted from experience, but rather between concepts that could and concepts that could not be so abstracted.
59. See for example, Graham Bird, Kant's Theory of Knowledge (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962), 10-11;
60. Allison, Kant's Transcendental Idealism, 11.
61. Here I have found helpful some remarks of Stephen Engstrom, who noted (in conversation) that the Metaphysical Deduction is meant to provide an answer to a kind of quid facti question, and that it is a sort of transcendental analogue of an empirical deduction.
62. In the transition from §19 (which is concerned with the forms of judgment) to §20 (where the categories are brought into the argument).
63. Although part of the point of the Aesthetic is to establish that the representation of space is an intuition (a singular representation), rather than a concept (a general representation), Kant refers to the "concept" of space at many places in the Aesthetic and the introduction to the Transcendental Deduction (§13), A number of commentators have wondered about this, and some have proposed that, in those occurrences, 'concept' is being used to mean representation in the generic sense. Whether or not this is correct (and I am inclined to believe that it is not), what is significant for my present purposes is that when Kant is considering the question of justification of the "concept" of space in the Aesthetic or in §13, he is asking about the objective validity of this representation with respect to objects given in sensibility (appearances). There does not appear to be any further or any distinct question about the justification of this representation with respect to the "one all-embracing space" itself. Thus, when Kant considers the objective validity of the representation of space, he treats it as in a sense "applying" to a plurality of objects So even if the representation of space is an intuition, when it comes to the question of its justification, it is treated as something which is in an important way akin to a concept, that is, a general representation. (The same points can also be made about the representation of time.)
64. It can be argued, however, that this answer to the quid furls question for the representations of space and time, given in the Aesthetic, is in a certain sense provisional, and that the question is only answered fully in the transcendental deduction of the categories (B160n). But this does not affect my point, which concerns the basis for the answer (whether provisional or not) that Kant presents in the Aesthetic itself.
65. I do not mean to suggest that, in terms of these specific tasks, Kant intends the contrast between Metaphysical and Transcendental Expositions (of the concepts of space and time) to function in a way that is analogous to the contrast between Metaphysical and Transcendental Deductions (of the categories). There are analogies (see B38, B40, and B159) but they don't extend this far.
66. It is in answering this question that Kant first makes the move from a "pure intuition" to a "form of sensibilit that is, to a determinate characterization of the source of the representation of space. Now sometimes Kant gives the impression that he treats 'pure intuition' and 'form of sensibility [ or of sensible intuition]' as equivalent and interchangeable expressions, which differ merely verbally (for example, at A31/B47, in the "singularity" argument for time). But it seems likely that this impression is misleading as regards Kant's views when he states them more precisely. For, in asking how pure intuition is possible, Kant clearly regards the claim-that pure intuition is nothing but the form of sensibility-as genuinely explanatory. There is a further point I wish to make about Kant's question, How is a priori intuition possible? Commentators have generally thought of the answer to this question as constituting one of Kant's central arguments for idealism about space and time-whatever problems there may be with the argument itself. I have no quarrel with that view. However I think that it is compatible with the account I am giving, according to which the answer specifies the source of the representation. Now in general the mere fact that a representation has its origin in us has no idealist consequences. But when that representation is an intuition, then, according to Kant, it does-and that is because intuition, insofar as it is what Kant calls "immediate" representation, guarantees the presence of its object (Prolego1nena, Ak. 4, 281-82).
67. The dispensability of abstraction accounts of origin, however, does not mean that they are of any less philosophical value when they are available, or that, when we find that a given concept does not allow of such an account, that fact is any less significant.
68. Accordingly, in the introduction to the deduction of the categories (§13) Kant says that, "we have already, by means of a transcendental deduction, traced the concepts of space and time to their sources, and have explained and determined their a priori objective validity" (A87/B119), referring, presumably, to the Transcendental Aesthetic. In other words, the task of establishing and delimiting the objective validity of the concepts of space and time (the completion of which is the ultimate purpose of providing a "transcendental deduction" for them) has involved an investigation of their "sources." It may well be asked why Kant would think this should be necessary. Perhaps the point is that, for Kant, the chief philosophical problems involved in establishing objective validity only really get raised once one has recognized that the representation at issue (though purporting to be about things in the world) has its origin in us. In order to explain how it is possible that such a representation (for example, an a priori intuition) could figure in knowledge, Kant claims that we must take up a "new point of view" (Bxix), which he characterizes as "Copernican." And it may be that Kant thinks an account of origin is needed in order to see how the representation's objective validity is to be reconciled with and linked to the idealism which the "Copernican" viewpoint involves.
69. Although the first (apriority) argument of the Metaphysical Exposition is, on my account, concerned with questions of origin, it is meant only to establish a negative result (that the representation of space does not have its source in experience). And this would not yet count, for Kant, as having "traced the concepts of space and time to their sources" (A87/B119), that is, as having found their sources. Moreover, even if we say that this negative result establishes that the source is, in some sense, "in us," this is not yet a characterization of the source which is determinate enough to allow for the delimitation of the representation's legitimate application.
70. The point of the second apriority argument seems to be to establish that the representation of space has certain features (namely, that it underlies all outer intuitions, that it is in some sense necessary) which attest to its apriorit though in a manner distinct from a direct investigation of its origin. I take it that Kant would treat these features as matters to be accounted for-that is, he would want to go on to ask how we could come to have, and how we could be justified in our use of a representation with such features. This would be analogous to pointing out that the concept of cause involves the idea of a necessary rule. It would then involve further investigation to explain how we could come to have, and how we could be justified in our use of a concept with such a feature.