anderson (synthesis, cognitive normativity, and the meaning of kant’s question).pdf

8102019 ANDERSON (Synthesis Cognitive Normativity and the Meaning of Kantrsquos Question)pdf

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullanderson-synthesis-cognitive-normativity-and-the-meaning-of-kants-questionpdf 131

Synthesis Cognitive Normativity and the

Meaning of Kantrsquos QuestionlsquoHow are synthetic cognitions a prioripossiblersquo

R Lanier Anderson

Kant organizes the critical philosophy around the question lsquo How are synthetic cogni-tions a priori possiblersquo (Prol 278)1 which he took to have enormous importance2

The real problem of pure reason is now contained in the question lsquo Howare synthetic judgments a priori possiblersquo

That metaphysics has until now remained in such a vacillating state of uncertainty and contradictions is to be ascribed solely to the cause that noone has previously thought of this problem On the solution of thisproblem metaphysics now stands or falls (B 19)

Attention to Kantrsquos question usually focuses on the specific nature of the synthetica priori but in my view there are also two broader issues in play First Kant believes there is a special problem about synthetic judgment ndash as opposed toanalytic judgment which turns on a simple logical relation of concepts (vizcontainment) Second there is a problem about the possibility of knowledge assuch The present paper explores this last aspect of Kantrsquos question I argue thatit is meant to raise fundamental issues about the normativity of cognition in a waythat sheds light on the most central and characteristic arguments of the Critique

Kant asks his question for the benefit of metaphysics which purports to

contain synthetic a priori cognition The hope is to learn something about suchcognition in general by investigating the lsquouncontestedrsquo (Prol 275) cases of mathe-matics and exact natural science The general features of actual scientific cogni-tion are then supposed to indicate what genuine metaphysical knowledge wouldhave to look like in part by revealing what gives cognition its normative force ndashie what makes it valid and binding for belief With such an account in hand wecan finally set metaphysics on lsquothe secure course of a sciencersquo (B vii) by gaining adeeper understanding of how normative knowledge is possible at all

Following a widespread tendency in early modern philosophy Kant viewscognition as a product of the powers and activities of the mind (see section 4 below) The approach appears obvious enough at first glance but from ourcurrent point of view it seems to render cognitive normativity harder to under-stand for reasons connected to the now-familiar charge of psychologism This isespecially true once we restrict attention to synthetic claims which cannot inherit

European Journal of Philosophy 93 ISSN 0966ndash8373 pp 275ndash305 copy Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001 108 Cowley Road OxfordOX4 1JF UK and 350 Main Street Malden MA 02148 USA



normative force from purely logical relations among their concepts The story Iwill present suggests that in fact later worries about psychologism were deci-sively shaped by Kantrsquos question about cognition It made visible basic assump-

tions about normativity built into the early modern conception of mind whoseprevious defense was not satisfactory Kantrsquos own agenda was not to underminethese assumptions however but to explain knowledge within the early modernframework by appealing to actions of the mind As a result he had to addresstwo main points First he needed an account of the nature of the mental opera-tions that generate normative cognition The Critiquersquos detailed theory of synthe-sis discussed in sections 2 and 3 fulfills this function and simultaneouslyprovides the model in terms of which Kant executes the workrsquos main argumentsSecond if the resulting knowledge is to count as true Kant must explain how

cognitive synthesis is reliably connected to the objects of knowledge I will arguein section 5 that the idealist lsquoCopernican revolutionrsquo supplies his response to thischallenge thereby completing the explanation of cognitive normativity begun bythe theory of synthesis

It is thus no accident that Kant thought his organizing question was so impor-tant It leads directly into the core arguments of the lsquoTranscendental Analyticrsquo ndashthe arguments in which Kant defends his systematic account of nature and ourknowledge of it My aim here is to uncover a basic argumentative strategy thatguides Kantrsquos procedure throughout the Analytic This pattern of reasoning tiestogether three of Kantrsquos principal doctrines all of which are often dismissed

nowadays as indefensible 1) the view that mental actions of synthesizing repre-sentations are central to the explanation of knowledge 2) Kantrsquos account of math-ematical proof and 3) transcendental idealism The resulting interpretationmakes a certain amount of sense of these seemingly embarrassing views andshows why Kant thought they were so central Understanding the importance heattributed to these ideas will also clarify some of our own philosophical prob-lems and indicate the theoretical costs of some elements of our current philo-sophical common sense

1 Two Alternative Readings of Kantrsquos Question

We can frame our problem by reference to two broad approaches to understand-ing Kantrsquos question which were well developed in the nineteenth century andalso have twentieth century adherents One offers a psychological reading of Kantrsquos Critique the other an epistemological reading Each approach has somethingto recommend it but both also have difficulties I will seek to build on theirstrengths in my interpretation below

The psychological reading understands Kant to be offering a theory of theworkings of the cognitive mind This idea (recently revived by Patricia Kitcher1990 and others3) provides a natural way to understand Kantrsquos lsquohow possiblersquoquestion ndash viz it is a question about the ways and means of cognition To askhow knowledge is possible in this sense is to ask what the mechanisms are by

276 R Lanier Anderson

983209 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001



which the mind produces knowledge Since the nineteenth century readers inthis tradition have often criticized Kant on the psychological details but theypraised him for opening up a new method for philosophy founded on discover-

ing the features of experience that are due to our own lsquophysio-psychological orga-nizationrsquo4 Many of them have also sought to correct and update the criticalphilosophy based on new discoveries For example F A Lange treatsHelmholtzrsquos doctrine of unconscious inference as empirical confirmation of Kantrsquos hint that sense and understanding might have some lsquocommon but to usunknown rootrsquo (A 15B 29) as well as of the basic Kantian idea that logical struc-ture is imposed onto experience by the setup of the mind (Lange 1876 II 31ndash2)5

There is substantial textual support for such an approach taken broadly In thekey arguments of the Analytic Kant clearly means to be offering a theory that

explains how the mind manipulates representations (eg concepts intuitions) toproduce cognitions Kantrsquos central arguments appeal to mental actions of synthe-sis or combination which on his view forge lsquoreal connectionsrsquo among our repre-sentations (connections of the sort whose possibility was doubted by Hume in hisfamous dictum that all our ideas are lsquoloosersquo or unconnected)6 The ubiquity of this explanatory strategy in Kant is widely acknowledged even by philosopherswho find Kantrsquos indulgence in psychology a source of embarrassment7

One thought that generates resistance to the psychological reading is thatKantrsquos strategy purports to reach a normative result ndash it attempts to underwrite the justification of valid knowledge like geometry or natural science These normative

intentions raise difficulties for a psychological interpretation of Kantrsquos theory of cognition which would explain knowledge through mental processes likecombining the parts of a perception or forming a belief through Humean laws of association Since Kant treats cognitions as individual mental states it is naturalto assume that the posited psychological processes explain cognitions by causingthem ndash an assumption that fits well with Kantrsquos understanding of empiricalpsychology as a causal theory based ultimately on simple laws of association Butprecisely that fact should give us pause for Kant himself insists that his theory of cognition does not belong within empirical psychology so conceived8

Indeed Kantrsquos anti-psychologism is based on the thought that merely psycho-logical explanations could never account for the normative standing of cogni-tions9 The difficulty arises from a fundamental structural difference betweennaturalistic and normative rules Unlike a descriptive natural law a prescriptivenormative rule does not entail that all the particular cases it covers actuallyconform to the rule If some cases violate a purported natural law we concludethat the law was mistaken and we adjust it to fit the new facts By contrast whenan event violates some normative rule we nevertheless hold it accountable to therule and count it as wrong or blameworthy because it does not conform Thenormative rule thus remains binding even when it is violated and thereby has adifferent lsquodirection of fitrsquo from descriptive rules

Psychological processes are described by naturalistic causal laws not prescrip-tive normative rules if some causal account predicted the emergence of a partic-ular cognitive state but a different one occurred instead the right theoretical

Kant Synthesis and Cognitive Normativity 277




response would be to count the causal hypothesis as disconfirmed by the experi-ment not to blame the actual cognition for being wrong10 Thus the causal expla-nation of a cognition does not account for its normative force To do that we need

an explanation compatible with various outcomes which can retain its validityeven if a false cognition is produced and thereby underwrite our judgment thatthe actual cognition is wrong This basic idea was developed and deployed in thelate nineteenth century as the charge of psychologistic fallacy ndash the fallacy of iden-tifying a normative rule of reasoning or cognizing with an exceptionless descrip-tive natural law

In recent decades it has been fashionable to make the psychologism chargeagainst early modern philosophers including Kant (see eg R Rorty 1979148ndash55 esp 151ndash2) But in fact as neo-Kantians emphasized already in the nine-

teenth century this was Kantrsquos own point against empiricism11

The empiricistsoffered a theory of the natural laws of cognition ndash a lsquophysiology of the under-standingrsquo (A ix cf A 85ndash7B 117ndash9) ndash and Kant shows that whatever they discov-ered about the way our concepts emerge in fact this would still leave the furtherquestion with what right we can use them to produce justified cognitions That isempiricist psychology fails to account for the normativity of cognition and theoutstanding normative question of right is just the one Kantrsquos transcendentaldeductions were meant to address12

So here is the problem for a psychological reading of Kant Given the model of science which guides the eighteenth century debate empirical psychological

processes must be described by exceptionless laws ultimately unified under afew simple principles Kant was as aware as anyone that given this conceptionof natural law there is a deep lsquoin principlersquo difference between questions belong-ing to the normative and to the naturalistic realms for him lsquothe ought if one hasmerely the course of nature before onersquos eyes has no significance whateverrsquo (A547B 575) Therefore psychological readers must be wrong that Kant intendedto explain knowledge by appeal to empirical psychological processes

Such considerations led to a purely epistemological reading of Kantrsquos questionabout how knowledge is possible13 On this reading the question is not about

how the mind generates representations Instead it concerns objective relations of justification between on the one hand bodies of knowledge conceived of asmind-independent abstract objects and on the other hand the world they aretrue of or the data that are evidence for them Within the epistemological inter-pretive tradition Kantrsquos lsquoregressive methodrsquo has assumed great importance Themethod generates lsquotranscendental argumentsrsquo which start from a given body of knowledge (or practice) which is assumed to be valid and then infer that theremust be some transcendental structure that explains the normative force of theassumed body of knowledge (or practice) ndash in Kant himself this would be a tran-scendental faculty of the mind So eg Kant starts from our valid knowledge of geometry and explains that knowledge by claiming that space is the form of outer intuition

Despite the mentalistic overtones of Kantrsquos own conclusion the startingpoint of the argument (the initial body of knowledge) can be characterized as a





mind-independent achievement of the culture ndash the validity of geometry does notdepend on its being apprehended by any particular person14 It was thereforepossible for anti-psychologistic readers of Kant to sever the mentalistic elements

from his view all they had to do was to refuse to posit faculties of the transcen-dental mind to explain normativity as Kant had done Various later Kantianshave offered many different proposals for an anti-psychologistic basis for norma-tivity once Kantrsquos appeals to the transcendental mind have been abandoned (egthe transcendental values of the neo-Kantians fundamental epistemic conditionsetc) Often these proposals raise philosophical problems of their own but theimportant point for our purposes is just that positing a non-mental version of thetranscendental allows Kantrsquos theory of mental actions to be submerged Suchanti-psychologistic readings have dominated Kant commentary since the late

nineteenth century15

The limitation of the epistemological approach however is just the flip side of the strength of the psychological reading When the epistemological readingdisavows the theory of mental activity Kant offers in the Critique it is forced toread away or to criticize as misguided an enormous amount of the account he isoffering16 The danger here is that Kantrsquos actual arguments will be suppressedalong with the theory of mental actions

To conclude both the psychological and the epistemological readings getsomething right about the Critique The psychological reading is right that Kantoffers us a theory of the mental actions involved in cognition and the epistemo-

logical reading is right that he is trying to provide a normative account of cogni-tions But that is just the puzzle Precisely the epistemological readerrsquos emphasison the normative status of Kantrsquos account seems to rule out the psychologicalreaderrsquos insistence on the theory of mental action Does this mean that Strawsonwas right to complain that the core doctrine of the Transcendental Analytic ndash atleast in Kantrsquos own hands ndash is lsquoincoherent in itselfrsquo (Strawson 1966 16) because of the way it appeals to mental activities of ordering experience The Strawsonianreaction is too quick Before despairing of the mentalistic arguments of theTranscendental Analytic and resorting to a radical reconstruction that casts

Kantrsquos ideas in substantially different form we should try to understand hisappeals to mental processing on their own terms In the next three sections I willoutline an approach to the Analytic that tries to accommodate the advantages of both epistemological and psychological readings While the resulting alternativeaccount raises deep philosophical issues of its own I will suggest that these are just the challenges Kant meant to be pressing on us

2 Kantrsquos Doctrine of Synthesis in the Argument of the Analytic

The core idea in Kantrsquos talk of cognitive mental processing is the notion of synthe-sis By investigating its argumentative role we can more carefully evaluate thepossibility that claims about mental processes can legitimately have implicationsfor a normative theory of cognition Kant officially introduces synthesis in the





first chapter of the Analytic on the lsquoClue to the Discovery of all Pure Concepts of the Understandingrsquo (A 66ndash83B 91ndash116) lsquosynthesis in the most general sense [is]the action of putting different representations together with each other and

comprehending their manifoldness in one cognitionrsquo (A 77B 103) According tothis definition the full-scale cognitive process of synthesis involves threeelements 1) a manifold of content to be combined (the lsquodifferent representationsrsquo)2) an action of combining the manifold (the lsquoputting togetherrsquo) and 3) a represen-tation of unity (lsquoone cognitionrsquo emph added) which serves as the principle of order connecting the manifold content (see A 78ndash9B 104 also B 130ndash1)17 Sosynthesis combines a given manifold into a unified whole

Such combinations are supposed to be required for us to produce genuinecognitions out of representations with manifold content The thought is that any

representation rising to the level of cognition will be complex and will exploit thatcomplexity in making its cognitive claim Therefore cognitions depend on amental capacity to represent the various aspects of some complex content sepa-rately (and thus explicitly) and then to link them to one another in a way that(likewise explicitly) represents their relations making all the content available forcognitive duty

We can now ask what kind of cognitive power synthesis is or in Kantrsquos termsto what faculty the activity of synthesis belongs The standard answer is Kantrsquosoft-quoted dictum that synthesis is lsquothe mere effect of the imagination of a blindthough indispensable function of the soul of which we are seldom even

consciousrsquo (A 78B 103) The lsquoblindnessrsquo highlighted here suggests that synthesisis simply a psychological tendency to associate representations according to(Humean) laws But if full cognitive synthesis really involves all three of theelements mentioned above then it must be lsquoblindrsquo only in some restricted senseAnd indeed the broader context of the lsquoblindnessrsquo passage itself suggests a richeraccount of the full-scale synthesis that generates cognitions Kant writes

The synthesis of a manifold first brings forth a cognition thesynthesis alone is that which properly collects the elements for cognitions

and unifies them Synthesis [is] the mere effect of the imaginationof a blind though indispensable function of the soul without which wewould have no cognition at all but of which we are seldom evenconscious Yet to bring this synthesis to concepts is a function that pertainsto the understanding and by means of which it [the understanding] firstprovides cognition in the proper sense (A 77ndash8B 103)

Kant begins from the idea that synthesis produces cognitions because it lsquoalonersquocan unify representations in the right way He then classifies synthesis as an effectof lsquoblindrsquo imagination and counts imaginative processing as a necessary conditionof cognition But Kant immediately introduces the qualification that cognition lsquointhe proper sensersquo requires that synthesis be guided by concepts provided by theunderstanding So it is the understanding and not the lsquoblindrsquo imagination by itselfthat is sufficient to lsquofirst providersquo genuine cognition (which was the achievement





attributed to synthesis lsquoalonersquo in the initial sentence) It follows that synthesiscannot be a lsquomerersquo effect of blind imagination after all if it is to do the work of lsquofirst bring[ing] forth a cognitionrsquo and indeed do it lsquoalonersquo The appearance of

inconsistency in Kantrsquos usage can be removed by considering the remarks heoffers further down the page

The first thing that must be given to us a priori for the cognition of allobjects is the manifold of pure intuition the synthesis of the manifold bymeans of the imagination is the second thing but it still does not yieldcognition The concepts that give this pure synthesis unity and thatconsist solely in the representation of this necessary synthetic unity arethe third thing necessary for cognition and they depend on the under-

standing (A 78ndash9B 104 cf B 130ndash1)

Here Kant explicitly teases apart the three elements that go into any completesynthesis Synthesis lsquoby means of the imaginationrsquo is only one of those elementsand since Kant insists that it lsquostill does not yield cognitionrsquo it must be only arestricted aspect of the full action of the mind that lsquofirst brings about a cognitionrsquoWe should therefore see Kant as implicitly distinguishing between on the onehand synthesis as a mere effect of imagination and on the other synthesis as lsquoanaction of the understandingrsquo (B 130)18 sufficient to unify constituent representa-tions into a cognition The former is (only) one element of the latter because full

synthesis combines synthesis in the former thinner sense with the idea of themanifold synthesized and (crucially) a conceptual representation of the unity of the synthesis

These are not merely arcane points of Kantrsquos faculty psychology As Kitchernotes Kant relies extremely heavily on the notion of synthesis to state his theoryof cognition she counts over sixty references to it in the A Deduction alone(Kitcher 1990 74) The philosophical question here is whether synthesis is funda-mentally conceptual (ie dependent on the rule-following understanding) ormerely causal (an act of blind rule-described imagination) Synthesis in the

complete three part sense essentially involves a conceptual representation of unity which serves as a rule for the mindrsquos combining activity (A 78ndash9B 103ndash4)It can therefore be understood as a kind of function that takes other representa-tions as inputs and yields as output a new representation that combines contentsderived from the inputs according to a characteristic pattern (fixed by theconcept)19 It thereby creates not merely a co-locating of different representationsin the mind but a genuine melding of their contents This is quite different fromthe mere association of representations by Humean laws which does not reorderthe contents within associated representations in any way20 The role of concep-tual rules for unity is suggestive for our purposes it may be that precisely herespace has been opened for synthesis to do normative work (eg if the rules couldreceive some normative interpretation) I will return to this suggestion below

The concept-laden conception of synthesis lends Kantrsquos theory of cognition alsquotop-downrsquo flavor Some commentators therefore resist it in order to read Kantrsquos





account as a lsquobottom-uprsquo explanation of how the mind builds higher cognitionson the basis of more rudimentary cognitive processes21 The cited texts make itclear however that the activity of synthesis does essentially involve higher

concepts In addition Kantrsquos most characteristic arguments have a fundamentallylsquotop-downrsquo structure aiming to show that even rudimentary cognitive operationslike perception are actually parasitic on the full conceptual activity he attributes tothe understanding

One such argument appears in the immediate context of Kantrsquos introduction of synthesis Just after the quoted passages Kant deploys the notion of synthesis ina pregnant sketch that outlines his basic strategy in the Transcendental AnalyticThe aim of Kantrsquos lsquoCluersquo chapter is to exploit the logical functions of judgment asthe lsquoguiding threadrsquo [Leitfaden] to the discovery of a system of the fundamental

concepts of the understanding or categories22

The thought is that the under-standing characteristically works by forging connections among representationsin judgments and that the system of logical forms of judgment will therefore giverise to categories that the understanding uses to guide synthesis If Kant couldshow that these categories are required for all synthesis and that all experience(even down to perception) rests on such syntheses then it would follow that thecategories are conditions of the possibility of experience

The details of this argument are notoriously devilish and Kant reaches themonly in the ensuing Transcendental Deduction (Indeed the application of thestrategy to particular categories awaits the still later arguments of the Analytic of

Principles) Nevertheless Kant sketches his general idea already in the lsquoCluersquochapter by way of motivating the importance of his table of categories Here iswhat he writes

The same function that gives unity to the different representations in a judgment also gives unity to the mere synthesis of different representa-tions in an intuition [and it] is called the pure concept of the under-standing The same understanding therefore and indeed by means of the very same actions through which it brings the logical form of a judg-

ment into concepts also brings a transcendental content into its repre-sentations by means of the synthetic unity of the manifold in intuition on account of which they are called pure concepts of the understandingthat pertain to objects a priori (A 79B 104ndash5)

This text reiterates the thought that the categories are to be understood as func-tions of synthesis that lsquogive unityrsquo to different representations But the key idea isthat the same synthesis provides both the unity of a full conceptual judgment andthe unity of representations in an intuition or perception That is the lower levelsynthesis involved in perception is already at the same time a higher level cogni-tive synthesis (guided by concepts of the understanding and potentially warrant-ing a full-scale cognitive judgment) Thus all experience presupposes thesynthesizing role of the understandingrsquos categories and so they cannot bederived from experience





Kant does not say merely that synthetic processes of the same general sort play arole in both perception and higher level conceptualization but that the synthesisis numerically identical The two tasks are carried out by the same instance of

synthesizing the same understanding lsquoby means of the very same actionsrsquo (A 79B105 emph added) brings about both kinds of unity Indeed it is because the samesynthesis can do all this that we can say the categories lsquopertain to objects a priorirsquo(A 79B 105) In my view this is the fundamental idea behind the arguments of the Analytic and I will call arguments that turn on it lsquosame synthesisrsquo arguments

There are questions to raise here The synthesis of concepts in a judgment andthe synthesis of intuitive elements into one perception appear to be radicallydifferent cognitive tasks calling for wholly different kinds of synthesis What canKant mean by asserting that these tasks are brought off by the same act It is also

far from evident how this identity suffices to show that the categories lsquopertain toobjects a priorirsquo Perhaps most troubling Kant himself differentiates the kinds of synthesis from one another apparently contradicting what I have just called hisfundamental idea The most famous example is probably the discussion of thelsquothreefold synthesisrsquo (A 97) in the A Deduction where Kant distinguishes asynthesis of apprehension in intuition (A 98ndash100) from a synthesis of reproduc-tion in imagination (A 100ndash2) and a synthesis of recognition in a concept(A 103ndash10)

The last contradiction is merely apparent however In the A Deduction Kantspeaks of a single lsquothreefoldrsquo synthesis not three different acts or kinds of synthe-

sis His argument there repeatedly returns to the idea that the different levels of synthesis are lsquoinseparably combinedrsquo (A 102) because they are ultimately identi-cal in some way (see A 108 118 119) I will argue that Kant distinguishes differ-ent levels in a single synthesis which should be understood as more and lessabstract structures ndash all contained in and realized by the single given act Moreabstract structural features provide the form of the synthesis which is then filledin by the more concrete details We can clarify the relation between these differ-ent levels and also see how Kantrsquos claim about the identity of the synthesis issupposed to help establish the a priori objective validity of the categories by

investigating the role of synthesis in one of Kantrsquos arguments

3 How lsquoSame Synthesisrsquo Arguments Work and the Nature oflsquoA priori Synthesisrsquo

Consider the lsquoAxioms of Intuitionrsquo where Kant argues that the categories of quantity (and therefore also the results of mathematics) are applicable to allappearances because they are preconditions of perception Kant begins by point-ing out that the perception of any extended thing eg an elliptical table top is arepresentation with complex content Perception represents the table top ashaving various parts for example So there must be a synthesis that lsquogoes throughand combinesrsquo the complex content in order to produce a single cognition thatexplicitly represents the several parts in their interrelations Next Kant observes





that since the perception represents the parts of the table top as located in space(itself a complex content) the perceptual synthesis depends on an underlyingsynthesis of the space the table is in That synthesis combines a manifold without

regard to qualitative differences of content (ie it is a lsquomanifold of the homoge-neousrsquo (B 203)) Finally as we saw Kant insists that every full cognitive synthesisinvolves a concept ie a function which abstractly represents the whole intowhich the synthesized elements are combined and provides a rule guiding thecombination The most general concept for our case is a rule combining homoge-neous units viz the concept of quantity or magnitude Thus Kant claims thesynthesis of space itself depends on a still more abstract synthesis according tothis concept In short then Kantrsquos argument is that 1) the perception of the tabletop is a synthesis which 2) depends on the underlying synthesis of space which

in turn 3) requires a synthesis according to the concept of quantity Thereforeapplying the categories of quantity to experience is a precondition even of perception and so all appearances are quantities

The crucial move in the argument is its assertion of a lsquotop-downrsquo dependenceof perception on the synthesis of space and ultimately on the synthesis accordingto the categories of quantity The same synthesis strategy provides the rationalefor this direction of dependence As I reconstructed the argument Kant considersthree distinct levels of synthesis 1) the full perceptual synthesis of the table top2) the synthesis of the space the table top fills (here an ellipse) and 3) the synthe-sis under the concept of quantity According to the same synthesis idea however

these are not three syntheses but only one synthesis with three levels related asform to matter and that is why the lower (perceptual level) synthesis depends ona higher conceptual synthesis Here is Kantrsquos own version of the conclusion

Thus even the perception of an object as appearance is possible only throughthe same synthetic unity of the manifold of given sensible intuition throughwhich the unity of the composition of the homogeneous manifold isthought in the concept of magnitude ie the appearances are all magni-tudes because as intuitions in space and time they must be represented

through the same synthesis as that through which space and time aredetermined (B 203 ital added)

When we perceive the table top then we simultaneously make a synthesis of anelliptical space which is nothing but an abstract structural feature of the veryempirical synthesis involved in perception (The table top (qua appearance) islsquorepresented through the same synthesis through which space [is] deter-minedrsquo) Likewise the synthesis according to the category of quantity is anabstract structure of that same empirical synthesis (the lsquosame synthetic unityrsquo)The more abstract structures of the synthesis (the form) are filled in by moreconcrete details (the matter) to make the full empirical synthesis Qua forms theabstract structures constrain the shape taken by the empirical content while theempirical content provides a specification of the abstract structures Thus lowersyntheses depend on higher ones which determine their form





Since the synthesis that produces cognition of this table is the same synthesisthat produces cognition of an ellipse (only now filled in with sensory content) themathematical truths we can derive about the ellipse will be literally true of the

table and indeed a priori true of it For instance the area of the table top must beπ times the product of the radii because that result characterizes all ellipticalspaces a priori and the synthesis of apprehension involved in the perception of the table top is just a synthesis of an elliptical space filled in with some particularcontent or lsquomatterrsquo of sense (A 20B 34) The categorial result that the table has aquantity is a priori true for parallel reasons Kantrsquos argument then is that one andthe same action of synthesis produces both the apprehension of an object and at thesame time the more abstract achievements of generating the spatial frameworkand subsuming the appearance under the category of magnitude Because the

fully concrete apprehension is just the filling in of these more abstract structuresit follows that they apply (with lsquoobjective validityrsquo) to the apprehended object23

If I am right about Kantrsquos argumentative strategy then his notorious lsquoa priorisynthesisrsquo cannot be a mysterious sui generis action of the mind separate fromordinary empirical synthesis as is often assumed24 Rather it is a structuralfeature of the very empirical synthesis that produces experience The a prioristructure of synthetic activity is isolated from the full empirical synthesis byabstracting from the details of the sensory matter being synthesized ndash an abstrac-tion legitimated by the basic formmatter distinction that organizes Kantrsquos theoryof cognition25 In the lsquoAnticipations of Perceptionrsquo Kant describes it this way

Perception is empirical consciousness ie one in which there is at thesame time sensation Appearances therefore contain the materi-als for some object in general ie the real of sensation Now fromthe empirical consciousness to the pure consciousness a gradual alter-ation is possible where the real in the former entirely disappears and amerely formal (a priori) consciousness of the manifold in space and timeremains (B 207ndash8)

By such a gradual abstraction according to Kant we eventually arrive at theformal or structural features of synthesis which are not derived from or dictated by the matter given in sensation that is they are independent of sensation or apriori Once the theory of cognition has uncovered these a priori features viaabstraction from paradigm cognitive syntheses then we can also go in the reversedirection to reconstruct experience Reconstruction starts from the abstract struc-ture provided by metaphysical categories and mathematical truths and fills inthat schema with sensory matter to reach full blooded experience

So far this talk of lsquofilling inrsquo a schematic structure remains somewhatmetaphorical and some readers may resist its use of abstraction as too empiricistWe can render it more specific by appeal to ideas from Kantrsquos philosophy of mathematics While it may not seem initially obvious a detour through thephilosophy of mathematics makes perfect sense under Kantrsquos account of the orga-nizing question of his philosophy The point was to ask how synthetic cognition





a priori was possible in the actual cases (mathematics exact natural science) so asto use what was learned from those examples to improve the prospects for meta-physics Extending cognitive strategies proper to mathematics into a new use in

metaphysics is thus a direct application of the general approachThe relevant mathematical notion is construction26 Kant adduces mathematical

constructions as his leading examples of schemata for synthesis in his chapter onthe schematism (A 140ndash1B 179ndash80) and in my view he understood all a priorisynthesis by analogy to mathematical constructions like geometrical diagramsTheir function in proof offers a clear paradigm for what it is to lsquofill inrsquo an abstractstructure to produce a more concrete representation For example in Bk I Prop1 Euclid describes the procedure for constructing an equilateral triangle whichexploits two intersecting circles constructed on the same line segment each with

the line segment as radius and one end point as center Because the constructionprocedure abstracts away from particular determinations like the magnitude of the initial line segment it provides a schematic representation of an equilateraltriangle which applies equally well to all such triangles Particular equilateralscan be understood as instantiations of the construction procedure which trans-late its schema into an image (A 140B 179ndash80) by rendering concrete the variousdetails (eg side size) from which the a priori construction rule abstracts27

It might be objected that mathematical construction is a completely a priorimatter whereas we were concerned to illuminate the relation between a prioriand empirical levels of synthesis But Kantrsquos account of how constructions can

produce a priori and necessary mathematical results clarifies just this relationConsider the following passage

The construction of a concept expresses universal validity for allpossible intuitions that belong under the same concept Thus I constructa triangle by exhibiting an object corresponding to this concept eitherthrough mere imagination in pure intuition or on paper in empirical intu-ition but in both cases completely a priori without having had to borrow thepattern for it from any experience The individual drawn figure is empir-

ical and nevertheless serves to express the concept without damage to itsuniversality for in the case of this empirical intuition we have takenaccount only of the action of constructing the concept to which many deter-minations eg those of the magnitude of the sides and angles areentirely indifferent and thus we have abstracted from these differences (A 713ndash14B 741ndash2 ital added)

Clearly the construction of an empirical figure with pencil and paper is an empir-ical process ndash an empirical synthesis Nonetheless the construction manages toexpress a universal a priori result because we lsquoabstractrsquo from the empirical detailsof the synthesis and attend only to the form of the action of the mind by which itconstructs the concept This lsquoschemarsquo (see A 140ndash2B 179ndash81) acts as a rule of synthesis It governs how the construction must be carried out and is valid apriori and therefore universally for all the concrete empirical instantiations That





is the construction rule is a schematic form which can be filled in by material indifferent particular ways while retaining its identifying structural features28 Suchconstruction rules stand to the empirical pencil and paper constructions just as

pure a priori synthesis stands to empirical synthesisIndeed Kantrsquos reference to the mental lsquoaction of constructingrsquo shows that

construction rules just are abstract a priori aspects of the syntheses involved inactual empirical constructions Moreover they are automatically valid of all theconcrete empirical syntheses that generate diagrams instantiating them precisely because the empirical diagrams are just lsquofillings inrsquo of the relevant schemata Thesame considerations account for Kantrsquos apparently absurd claim that empiricalpencil and paper constructions are a priori in some sense they are so because theyhave an abstract structural aspect (captured by the construction rule) that is a

priori and the only important thing about the empirical action of construction isits status as an instance of that a priori structure of synthesis (We lsquoabstractrsquo fromall the rest) Mathematical construction thereby exemplifies the formcontentrelation between the pure and empirical syntheses which Kantrsquos lsquosame synthesisrsquoarguments exploit to prove the validity of metaphysical concepts

The notion of a schema thus turns out to be of crucial importance for under-standing Kantrsquos procedure in the Transcendental Analytic29 Kant opens theAnalyticrsquos final chapter claiming to have established that lsquoThe principles of pureunderstanding contain nothing but only the pure schema as it were for possible experiencersquo (A 236ndash7B 296) The model is worth taking seriously for the cate-

gories provide the form for empirical synthesis (and thus to experience) in muchthe way a schematic construction dictates the form of a geometrical object Thecategories are of course more abstract than any geometrical construction ndash soabstract indeed that they require a special investigation to produce the appro-priate schemata for relating them to spatio-temporal experience30 But once theschematized category is in place it functions in a directly analogous way Kantsays it provides a lsquomonogramrsquo (A 142B 181) (in the sense of a simple outlinedrawing) which serves as a lsquorule of the synthesisrsquo (A 141B 180) That synthesisin turn fills in the monogram by producing a more specific concrete instantiation

of the schematic form it representsIt is time to sum up the result of this section Kant understood the categories as

rules for a priori synthesis The a priori part of synthesis provides the form of ourexperience and constrains the shape taken on by the empirical parts That is themost abstract concepts of metaphysics and below them the a priori structures of mathematics and exact mathematical natural science provide a schema that isgradually filled in by more concrete and articulated structures of synthesis as wedescend through it This a priori schema is eventually itself filled in with addi-tional detail by the sensory matter of experience insofar as that matter issubsumed and organized by the concepts of the special sciences In this sense Ithink Michael Friedman is exactly right to suggest that the regulative idealtoward which Kantrsquos metaphysics of nature aims is a wholly systematic but stillabstract picture of the natural world presented as a kind of construction (analo-gous to a mathematical construction) to be filled in by experience31





Thus the critical philosophy of nature might be figured by a map printed on aseries of transparency pages where the coastalborder outline is printed on the bottom page and each additional page carries features of some particular type

(elevation river systems vegetation cover roads and towns population etc)The additional features are added to the total picture as we fold the transparencypages down over the basic outline map at the bottom The outline dictates thegeneral shape (and thereby constrains the range of particular shapes) that may betaken by more specific features But the abstract formal parts of Kantrsquos map ndash thea priori parts of synthesis ndash have objective reality only because they are just highlevel structures of the very same empirical syntheses through which actual objectsare cognized As Kant puts it lsquoempirical synthesis is the only kind of cogni-tion that gives all other synthesis realityrsquo (A 157B 196) That is a priori categories

and mathematical truths are valid of objects because they are the forms of theempirical syntheses through which such objects must be given

4 Transcendental Synthesis as an Intrinsically Normative Power of Mind

We have just seen in outline how Kantrsquos doctrine of the mental process of synthe-sis is supposed to produce the characteristic results of his transcendental philos-ophy of nature Now however the question of normativity confronts us in amore specific and pressing form Given that all the schematic structures I have

described are nothing but abstract patterns in the actual processes of empiricalsynthesis in the mind what makes them normative rules for cognition rather thanmerely descriptive generalizations about cognitive psychology There are twoissues to confront There is of course the particular problem of what rules forsynthesis Kant proposes and how these might function as normative rules capable of answering justificatory questions about our cognitions Before we evenreach that question however there is a more general issue about how Kant couldavoid the psychologistic fallacy at all if he thinks that any operation of mind nomatter how described figures crucially in explanations of the normative standing

of cognitionWe can make progress on the broader question by applying an idea developed

by Gary Hatfield in a more general context32 Hatfield shows that the charge of psychologistic fallacy misses the mark when it is deployed against philosophersin the early modern tradition because it trades on an anachronistic conception of mind Today we conceive of the mind as simply a natural feature of humanorganisms Someone like Descartes by contrast thinks of the mind as a site of intrinsically normative powers of knowing carrying their own standards of correctness specifying right and wrong uses such that when the mind is usedrightly it will automatically track the truth Nor is this conception of mind uniqueto Descartes or even to the rationalist tradition Locke too treats the mind as anormative power admitting of right or wrong use and tracking the truth whenrightly used33 The difference between the two is not over whether the intellect isa normative knowing power but over the legitimate scope of that power Descartes





thinks we can use it to grasp the real essences of independent substances by intel-lectual intuition where Locke thinks we are limited to apprehending the relationsof our ideas34 Within this general viewpoint inference from claims about mental

processes to normative results is simply not a fallacy for the normativity isalready built into the working of the mind

The idea that powers of mind were supposed to be lsquointrinsically normativersquo isnot often appreciated probably because it is so foreign to current thinking aboutthe mind What intrinsic normativity amounts to may become clearer from a lessphilosophically charged example A jury summons for instance has standards of correctness rights and wrongs ndash lsquosupposed torsquosrsquo ndash built into its being the thingthat it is When one receives the summons one is supposed to do certain thingsreport to the court at a certain time bring the summons park only in certain

areas notify onersquos employer make oneself available during a definite period etcThese lsquosupposed torsquosrsquo and their normative force are what makes a particular pieceof paper be a jury summons and not just another letter detailing the services of your local government Only something that creates such obligations counts as a jury summons

On the early modern conception normativity is internal to any adequatedescription of the mind just as it is for the jury summons because the mind isthought of as an instrument with a correct (intended) use lsquobuilt inrsquo By contraston the currently standard way of thinking activities and products of mind aretypically evaluated on the basis of standards applied from an outside viewpoint

So conceived norms are mind-independent achievements of culture binding onparticular minds in virtue of their participation in that culture or in virtue of thenormsrsquo objectivity or what have you they are not binding in virtue of minded-ness as such We may hope that our processes of belief formation lead to truththat our patterns of action lead to goodness and justice and so on but these areindependent hopes and desires learned from the social context and believing insuch norms is not essential to our having a psychology at all35 Our valuing truth(or goodness or validity) does not determine the laws of psychology nor dosuch laws determine the standards of truth (goodness validity) In this way

being a mind in our sense is something quite different from being a Cartesianintellect which comes ready-made from the creator with intended right andwrong uses36

This early modern conception of the mind provides the context for under-standing Kantrsquos question about how knowledge is possible It even helps explainwhy Kant thought the question was so important and revolutionary He followsthe long-accepted paradigm that treated the mind as a site of intrinsically norma-tive cognitive capacities but his work is paradigm shattering in the sense that hesees this basic assumption as standing in need of special explanation an adequatephilosophical theory of cognition must explain in detail how it is possible for themind to operate as a normative knowing power37 Kantrsquos ultimate idealist expla-nation was highly controversial and I will return to it in the next section We canalready see however that Kant departs from Descartes and Locke not by deny-ing that the intellect is a normative power but by insisting that they are both





wrong about which normative powers the mind has (or is) He famously rejectsthe very possibility of rationalist intellectual intuition38 and he is equally surethat we are not limited to the mere comparison of ideas as empiricists had

claimed39As will be clear by now Kant took synthesis instead of intellectual intuition of

essences or mere apprehension of relations of ideas to be the core normativepower of mind which is why synthesis plays such a central role in the Analyticrsquostheory of cognition Above I raised the possibility that claims about synthesismight legitimately have normative implications because the rules for synthesismight receive a normative interpretation We can now see what this might cometo the synthesis rules might be rules for the correct use of the (intrinsicallynormative) cognitive powers of mind

But are the rules of synthesis as Kant describes them in fact normative rulesAs we saw above it is a necessary condition on such rules that they do not entailtheir instances and so exhibit the proper lsquodirection of fitrsquo Conceptual rules forsynthesis can be formulated to meet this condition It would then be possible forsyntheses to violate a given rule but such syntheses would not count as instancesof the concept This is not yet sufficient for synthesis rules to be genuinely norma-tive however for the direction of fit condition does not yet characterize them asrules that actually bind us rules we have reason to follow For example I am notrequired to synthesize the things all over my desk under the concept ltpapersgtrather than under the concepts ltnotes about Kantgt or even ltmattergt40 I must do

so only if I wish to count as using the concept ltpapersgt41 For all we have seen sofar such hypothetical lsquorequirementsrsquo might even be merely non-standard expres-sions of underlying essentially descriptive empirical regularities In order tocount as part of a water molecule an oxygen atom must be bound to two hydro-gen atoms but the underlying principle is not normative

Thus the fuller sense in which conceptual rules are normative must take us beyond the hypothetical requirement that only certain syntheses count asinstances of the concept to a demand that I ought to synthesize using one conceptrather than another This presents something like genuine cognitive normativity

by offering a claim that some concept is the right one to use given the matter to be synthesized or other concepts already in play or both

The doctrine of a priori synthesis affords rules for synthesis that are normativein this more robust sense Consider again the example of perceiving an ellipticaltable top In that case deploying the concept lttablegt is optional in just the waywe saw above with ltpapersgt I might synthesize the perceptual matter usinglttablegt but I could use ltwoodgt (or ltfurnituregt or ltellipsegt) instead or in addi-tion Note however that deploying ltellipsegt is not optional in the same way theothers are there is a sense in which it is required If I synthesized the perceptualmatter of the table top so that there were no abstract structure implicit in thesynthesis that fit the concept ltellipsegt (eg if I synthesized such that the area wasnot π times the product of the radii) then I would have made a mistake in synthe-sis The mathematical features of the ellipse are binding for my synthesis in a waynot immediately attainable by empirical concepts Thus the structures of a priori





synthesis serve as normative rules for the syntheses that make up experiencecognitions are correct when they conform to these rules

A cognition lsquoconforms to the rulesrsquo of a priori synthesis in a way suggested by

the earlier discussion of synthesis All syntheses following a given rule forcombining input representations are instances of the same concept We saw thatconcepts can characterize structures at different levels of abstraction in the sameact of synthesis and a parallel point applies to separate acts of synthesisConsider for example the syntheses involved in the perceptions of a blue plateand a red plate they fail to share the synthetic pattern captured by the conceptltbluegt but do share a more abstract pattern captured by the concept ltcoloredgtMoreover as Kant notes in the lsquoSchematismrsquo chapter (A 137B 176) they mayalso share the much more abstract indeed a priori pattern of ltcirclegt Syntheses

can thus fall under a common concept at one level of abstraction (ltcirclegtltcoloredgt) but fail to fall jointly under a less abstract concept (ltredgt ltbluegt) Sosyntheses instantiate the same conceptual rule (conform to the concept) just incase they have a common structure at the relevant level of abstraction mdashthat is if they are structurally homomorphic For example a correct perceptual synthesis of our table top is homomorphic in this way to ltellipsegt and to ltquantitygt Sincecategories are conceptual rules it follows that a given cognition conforms to acategory (and thus satisfies the most basic cognitive norms) if it has an abstractstructure homomorphic to the correct (categorial) form of a priori synthesis If anempirical synthesis fails to match the a priori forms then it violates the norms of

cognition and is therefore mistakenError of course raises a manifest difficulty here According to the lsquosame

synthesisrsquo picture every action of synthesis has more and less abstract structuralfeatures but obviously not every synthesis satisfies the norms of cognition Howdoes Kant conclude that only some subset of the possible abstract structures forsynthesis comes to count as the class of correct norms for synthesis which wehave reason to follow And how can we identify this privileged class

The short answer is that the normative rules of a priori synthesis are rules of unity or coherence for experience42 Kantrsquos underlying thought rests on deep

considerations about objectivity that make a degree of unity a precondition of thedeterminacy of experience Consider an apparent failure of unity eg two expe-riences which seem to conflict with one another From the conflict we can gleanthat they represent either different things altogether or different states of something which has undergone a change If we had independent grounds for think-ing that the experiences captured different states of one object then we coulddecide in favor of the latter possibility otherwise however the pair of experi-ences simply fails to represent either possibility determinately Thus the pair becomes a determinate representation only when the two are unified by beingtreated as representations of one (possibly changing) object43 Of course some-times we have experiences that do simply represent lsquodifferent thingsrsquo but notethat they cannot determinately and explicitly represent their respective stretchesof experience as different (rather than a single changing thing) except by placingthe things they represent in a definite relation to one another in one underlying





collection of objects Even in this instance then determinate representationdepends on the kind of underlying unity we achieve when we successfullyattribute different representations to an object here we just confront the limit case

in which the one object is nature itself and different things are related to oneanother as its parts44

Kant concludes that the norms establishing the proper use of the cognitivefaculties should be rules of unity for it is only by unifying our representations inthis way that we can use them to achieve determinate objective representation inthe first place Therefore the correct forms of synthesis (ie the genuinely a prioriones) will be those whose structure fits to a very large amount of our experienceand so enables us to unify that experience into a coherent picture of the worldThis is why Kant identifies the form of experience by applying the regressive

method to cases of especially systematic cognition like mathematics and exactnatural science The abstract features of synthesis in these cases are likely toproduce highly general structures of synthesis with which our various synthesescan best be reconciled with one another into a maximally unified wholeEmpirical syntheses will be correctly carried out when their structure is homo-morphic to these a priori forms When Kant argues that a particular form of synthesis rises to the level of a condition of the possibility of experience he istrying to guarantee its status as a principle of the unity of experience which isthereby normative for empirical synthesis

It does not follow of course that no empirical synthesis could ever conflict

with the general a priori structures of synthesis Naturally some actual represen-tations will not fit into our objective picture of the world we dream have percep-tual illusions make false judgements etc In these cases something about thesynthesis resists homomorphism with the general unifying forms Suppose forexample that I dream I have missed my friendrsquos wedding because I was caughtup watching reruns and that she is now angrily slamming a door in my face ndashand then I wake up disoriented in my hotel room to the sound of jackhammersripping up the street outside My dream experiences cannot be integrated withnearby experiences (The door disappears its sound is replaced by the jackham-

mersrsquo my friend is not really angry with me it is still two days before thewedding etc) Such deviant representations fail to match the general norms of synthesis (in this case norms associated with the categories of cause andsubstance) and so they are evaluated as non-veridical or as Kant often puts itmerely lsquosubjectiversquo (A 201B 247)45 In the same way we would dismiss anyonewho calculated the area of our elliptical table top by some other rule than π timesthe product of the radii That structural rule has normative force for our experi-ence and any experience that seems to conflict with it will be discounted

The doctrine of a priori synthesis is thus crucial to Kantrsquos explanation of howcognition is possible because he thinks the a priori level of synthesis provides thefundamental cognitive rules for the mindrsquos functioning as a normative knowingpower The a priori status of transcendental synthesis does important work hereFirst it allows synthesis rules to satisfy the necessary lsquodirection of fitrsquo condi-tion46 Natural laws imply their instances so violations disconfirm the law but





normative rules remain binding even when violated and we hold the particularevents (eg false judgments bad actions) accountable to them Since a priorisynthesis is not dictated by the matter given through sensation it has standing

independent of how the details of experience are filled in Therefore the struc-tures of a priori synthesis are not caused by or accountable to experience they arenot merely a links in a causal chain of belief formation processes governed byexceptionless Humean laws of association and qua a priori they have the appro-priate lsquodirection of fitrsquo to serve as normative rules against which the empiricalsyntheses are to be evaluated Second the a priori synthesis provides the form forveridical experience which allows empirical syntheses to count as determinaterepresentations of cognitive objects in the first place We therefore have reason tosynthesize under these rules and their structure normatively constrains all lsquofill-

ing inrsquo by sensory matter or content The distinction between the a priori andempirical levels of synthesis thus gives Kant the resources to make a distinction between valid and invalid instances of synthesis and thus to count synthesis as anormative power of the mind which has right and wrong uses intrinsically

5 Explaining How Knowledge is Possible the Import of TranscendentalIdealism

Even if we agree for the moment to put aside worries about Kantrsquos unfamiliar

normative conception of mind the picture of a priori synthesis just sketched stillraises a fundamental question Why should objects conform to whatever repre-sentations our rules of synthesis require us to produce Put another way the inde-pendent standing of the a priori structure within synthesis might enable it to serveas some norm against which we might decide for whatever reason to evaluateour various empirical syntheses but why should we think that the norm to whichthe rules of a priori synthesis tunes our representations is the norm of truth

At this point the full meaning of Kantrsquos question about how knowledge ispossible comes into focus The possibility of knowledge is a special problem

because knowledge is a normative achievement and this achievement actuallyconnects us to the world According to Kant a non-arbitrary connection betweencognition and the world can be established only if there is a real influence in onedirection or the other either the world makes our concepts be the way they areor our concepts make the world be the way it is (B 166ndash8 B xvindashxviii) Kant thinksall attempts to make out the first alternative are doomed Empiricist accounts of belief formation compromise the normative standing of cognitive achievement because they provide a mere lsquophysiology of the understandingrsquo (A ix) ie a setof natural laws of the mind Rationalist accounts do not eliminate cognitionrsquosnormativity by making its connection to the world a matter of natural law buttheir strategy renders the connection itself unintelligible They turn it into a mira-cle by appealing to some lsquomagical powerrsquo (A xiii) of cognition like intellectualintuition which in the end must be underwritten by special sanction from a benevolent God Kant notoriously concludes that the only way to guarantee a





non-arbitrary but still normative connection between cognition and the world isto reverse our usual assumptions and opt for a system of idealism in which ourconceptual structures dictate the structure of the natural world

Kant returns to his insistence on idealism at the close of many of the argumentsof the Transcendental Analytic47 His claim in these passages is that the validapplicability he has shown for the category in question and therefore genuineknowledge using that category is possible only because the objects of knowledgeare appearances That is the objects are just the lsquofillings inrsquo by empirical details of a priori valid schemata for synthesis Therefore the conditions placed on theproper representation of objects by the normative rules of synthesis are at thesame time conditions on the things to be known

Thus idealism was so important to Kant because it is the answer to his ques-

tion about how knowledge is possible That turns out to be a question about howthe mind can function as a truth-tracking normative power This will be possiblein turn only if two conditions obtain 1) the mind must carry within itself anintrinsic distinction between its right and wrong uses and 2) the right use musttrack the truth about objects The forms of the transcendental synthesis establishwhich uses of the mind are correct and this meets the first condition Idealismmeets the second Under this system the realm of nature draws its fundamentalstructure from just this transcendental synthesis considered as a kind of meta-physicalmathematical schematic construction that outlines the abstract form of nature Because the a priori synthesis constitutes the world of appearance in this

way empirical syntheses that conform to its form will capture the truth aboutthat world

6 Conclusions

Insofar as it means to treat knowledge then the meaning of Kantrsquos question is toask how the mind can be a normative knowing power and ultimately to ask howcognitive normativity is possible at all ndash ie how we can achieve cognitions

which have a non-arbitrary connection to objects but are not simply caused bytheir objects in a way that would compromise their normative status Althoughgreatly concerned with cognitive mechanisms Kantrsquos question is not merelypsychological in our post-Kantian sense Nor (despite its concern with justifica-tion) is it merely epistemological since it involves itself deeply in the philosophyof mind and in the concrete workings of the cognitive powers

Kantrsquos idealist solution to the question is clearly powerful especially when itis linked to his detailed picture of a priori synthesis to the roots of that picture inhis account of eighteenth century mathematical practice and to the status in thephilosophical context of intrinsically normative powers of mind as a going philo-sophical theory Nevertheless the theoretical costs of Kantrsquos approach are boundto seem very high to us His early modern conception of mind is no longer a livephilosophical option mathematical practice has abandoned the proof procedurehe presents as unavoidable and Kantrsquos idealism seems highly problematic The





idealism in particular struck even many of his contemporaries as unacceptable Itmust be admitted however that idealism offers quite an elegant solution to theproblem of explaining how the mind could function as a normative knowing

power Given the obviousness of that problem ndash once Kant had posed his questionndash and the elegance of the idealist resolution it is possible that idealism came toseem so necessary to underwrite the normative conception of mind that the threatof such idealism itself became one reason for subsequent philosophy to abandonthat conception and cede the province of mind to naturalistic psychology

Whatever the details of these historical developments in our conception of themind the Kantian contribution to that history has unquestionably left us with asignificant piece of our current philosophical problematic Kantrsquos effort to posethe question about the possibility of cognition as a normative achievement

convinced many philosophers of the importance of a fundamental distinction between the natural and the normative and without intrinsically normativemental capacities to serve as the source of normativity philosophy since the mid-nineteenth century has spent a great deal of effort searching for a different wayto ground normative practices of culture The very difficulty of the searchmeasures the price of relinquishing the admittedly troubling assumptions out of which Kant erected his solution48

R Lanier AndersonDepartment of Philosophy

Stanford UniversityStanfordCA 94305ndash2155USAlaniercslistandordedu

NOTES

1 Citations to the Critique of Pure Reason use the standard AB format to refer to thepages of the first (A) and second (B) editions Citations to Kantrsquos other works employ thepagination of the Akademie edition I have used the translations and abbreviations listedamong the references

2 Kantrsquos statements about the questionrsquos centrality are already prominent in the Aedition and the Prolegomena In A Kant wrote

A certain mystery thus lies hidden here the elucidation of which alone can makeprogress in the boundless field of pure cognition of the understanding secure andreliable namely to uncover the ground of the possibility of synthetic a priori judg-ments (A 10)

Complaining about the Garve-Feder review in the Prolegomena Kant wrote that itdid not mention a word about the possibility of synthetic cognition a priori whichwas the real problem on the solution of which the fate of metaphysics whollyrests and to which my Critique (just as here my Prolegomena) was entirely directed(Prol 377)





3 Kitcherrsquos work (1990 1982 1984 1995 and 1999) has paved the way for recentpsychological treatments of Kant reopening an interpretive tradition which had all butdisappeared from view since the nineteenth century See Brook 1994 for example and

also to some extent Falkenstein 1995 Hatfield 1992 traces the different kinds of psychol-ogy present in Kant and clarifies the use of psychological concepts in the central argu-ments of the Analytic but he cannot be simply classed within the psychological readingWhat distinguishes that approach is the idea that the Analytic offers an essentially psycho-logical theory whereas Hatfield 1992 draws a strong distinction between psychology andthe lsquotranscendental philosophyrsquo of the Analytic See also Hatfield 1990

4 The term is due to F A Lange (1876 II 30) whose chapter on Kant is of special inter-est in this connection

5 In many respects Lange proposes replacing Kantrsquos transcendental account with anempirical theory of the mind He claims eg that Kantrsquos great idea was to lsquodiscoverrsquo (Lange

1876 II 29) the a priori components of experience but that he had gone about this the wrongway lsquoThe metaphysician must be able to distinguish the a priori concepts that are perma-nent and essentially connected with human nature from those that are perishable and corre-spond only to a certain stage of development But he cannot employ for this other apriori propositions [or] so-called pure thought because it is doubtful whether the prin-ciples of those have permanent value or not We are therefore confined to the usual meansof science in the search for and examination of universal propositions that do not come fromexperience we can advance only probable propositions about this rsquo (Lange 1876 II 31)Similar ideas have resurfaced along with the psychological reading itself in the twentiethcentury Compare Kitcher 1990 84ndash6 111ndash12 135ndash6 1995 302 306 and Brook 1994 whorelate Kantrsquos ideas to results of contemporary experimental psychology

6 Hume claims that all events associated by cause and effect (including occurrences of ideas in the mind) are lsquoloose and separatersquo (Enquiry VII ii Hume 1975 74) and that wehave no legitimate idea of real or necessary connections which might link them He explic-itly applies this skepticism to connections among ideas in the discussion of personal iden-tity in the Appendix to the Treatise lsquoIf perceptions are distinct existences they form awhole only by being connected together But no connexions among distinct existences areever discoverable by human understandingrsquo because lsquothe mind never perceives any realconnexion among distinct existencesrsquo (Hume 1978 635 636) For Kantrsquos claim to the contrarythat the understanding does forge real connections among perceptions see the beginningof the lsquoSecond Analogyrsquo at B 233 and also A 225B 272

7 See eg criticisms of Kantrsquos psychology by Strawson 1966 and Guyer 1987 and1989 Guyer 1989 thinks that it is possible to find a non-psychologistic theory of synthesisin the Analytic which proceeds by identifying lsquoconceptual truths about any representingor cognitive systems that work in timersquo (58) This approach does make claims about themind but Guyer thinks it avoids postulating particular mental acts and therefore depen-dence on contingent empirical psychological truths As such it does not fall into psychol-ogism The view I offer below is indebted to Guyerrsquos treatment (see also Guyer 1992a)

8 For Kantrsquos understanding of empirical psychology see Prol 295 A 347B 405 A100 A 112ndash3 A 122 and B 152 In outlining his compatibilism too Kant subjects the empir-ical character to exceptionless natural laws (A 539 B 567 A 545B 573 A 549ndash50B 577ndash8)

For the separation between Kantrsquos transcendental theory of cognition and the empiricallsquophysiologyrsquo of inner sense see A 85B 117 A 86ndash7B 118ndash9 and also A 54ndash5B 78ndash9where Kant separates empirical psychology from pure logic which contains transcenden-tal logic and hence the theory of cognition of the Analytic Detailed analysis of Kantrsquos posi-tion on psychology can be found in Hatfield 1992 esp pp 217ndash24





9 Kantrsquos anti-psychologistic treatment of general logic (A 53ndash5B 77ndash9) emphasizesthat an empirical account of the mindrsquos operations cannot explain the normative force of logical laws

10

The whole aim of such causal stories is to explain the cognitive states that are actu-ally produced in the event by deriving them from the prior facts and the laws

11 To my knowledge the first to make this point as an attack on the psychological read-ing was Hermann Cohen 1871

12 For example in the Transcendental Deduction Kant writes that Jurists when they speak of entitlements and claims distinguish in a legal matter between questions about what is lawful (quid juris) and that which concerns the fact(quid facti) and since they demand proof of both they call the first that which is toestablish the entitlement or the legal claim the deduction Among the manyconcepts that constitute the mixed fabric of human cognition there are some that are

also destined for a pure use a priori and these always require a deduction of theirentitlement since proofs from experience are not sufficient for the lawfulness of such a use [They require] an entirely different birth certificate than that of ances-try from experience I will therefore call this attempted physiological derivationwhich cannot be called a deduction at all because it concerns a quaestio facti theexplanation of the possession of a pure cognition (A 84ndash7B 116ndash19)

13 Paul Guyer is perhaps the leading contemporary exponent of this approach (seeGuyer 1987 esp pp 232 241ndash6 303ndash5 315ndash16 and Guyer 1989) but such epistemologicalreadings have been dominant since Cohen 1871 and most recent commentaries fall intothis broad camp (including eg Allison 1983 with its central focus on the idea of an lsquoepis-temic conditionrsquo) Wolff 1963 is an exception as are the contemporary psychological read-

ings cited above14 Kant himself calls geometry lsquoa cognition [eine Erkenntnis]rsquo (Prol 280 cf also A 87B

120 et passim) and so for him the validity of geometry is arguably not a wholly mind-inde-pendent fact but a fact about human cognitive achievement Since however this lsquocogni-tionrsquo is by Kantrsquos own lights wholly independent from any particular mind hisanti-psychologistic followers can easily eliminate any vestiges of mentalism from Kantrsquosformulations by construing geometry as a body of doctrine which is what it is no matterwhat human beings know about it Indeed it is arguable that Kant never meant anythingelse in referring to geometry as lsquoeine Erkenntnisrsquo such a view is implicit eg in Hatfieldrsquoschoice to translate the phrase by lsquoa body of cognitionrsquo

15 Versions of the broadly anti-psychologistic approach have been advanced by schol-ars with otherwise very widely diverse positions including Cohen 1871 Windelband 1884Cassirer 1981 [1918] Kemp Smith 1923 Strawson 1966 Bennett 1966 Pippin 1982 Allison1983 and Guyer 1987 and 1992a

16 Strawson offers a particularly striking example of the tendencyKant thought of his project in terms of a certain misleading analogy the char-acter of our experience is partly determined by our cognitive constitution [But] the workings of the human perceptual mechanism are matters for scientific notphilosophical investigation Kant was well aware of this Yet in spite of this awarenesshe conceived the latter investigation by a kind of strained analogy with the former

Wherever he found limiting or necessary general features of experience he declaredtheir source to lie in our own cognitive constitution and this doctrine he consideredindispensable Yet there is no doubt that this doctrine is incoherent in itself and masksrather than explains the real character of his inquiry so that the central problem inunderstanding the Critique is precisely that of disentangling all that hangs on this





doctrine from the analytical argument which is in fact independent of it (Strawson1966 15ndash16 emphasis added)

17 Wayne Waxman (1991 250n28 259ndash60) rightly points out the need for care with the

notion of synthesis Kant sometimes clearly uses lsquosynthesisrsquo to refer to the combining activ-ity alone (ie the second feature in the list) whereas at other times lsquosynthesisrsquo refers to amore complex achievement involving all three aspects Waxman is correct that for certainarguments Kant actually needs a notion of synthesis that does not analytically contain thethird element (the idea of unity) which would beg certain questions against Hume Tetenset al by building into the very concept of mental processing a strong form of unity thatKant needs to show belongs to our cognitions For these reasons Waxman prefers to restrictKantrsquos uses of lsquosynthesisrsquo to the former meaning (He strictly distinguishes synthesis fromcombination which involves all three elements and he criticizes scholars (eg Kitcher 199073ndash7) who simply equate the two)

I think however that the clear distinction is due to Waxman and not Kant Kanthimself clearly equates lsquosynthesisrsquo and lsquocombinationrsquo at B 129ndash30 ndash that is right at the

beginning of the B Deduction where he should be most sensitive about begging the ques-tion against empiricism Moreover there is a clear use of lsquosynthesisrsquo in the more restrictedsense Waxman prefers on the very same page (B 130) I think it better to conclude that Kantuses lsquosynthesisrsquo to mean both mere combining (ie lsquosynthesisrsquo sensu Waxman) and also themore complex achievement that involves such combining plus the ideas of the manifoldand of a unity guiding combination This usage makes sense for Kant because he ulti-mately aims to argue that even the lower level more basic kinds of synthesis in factdepend on higher level conceptualized forms of synthesis

18 Thus Kant lsquoall combination whether we are conscious of it or not is an action of

the understanding which we would designate with the general title synthesisrsquo (B 130)19 Kant often speaks of lsquofunctions of synthesisrsquo (see eg A 105 A 108 A 109 A 112 A

164B 205 A 181 B 224) and he also says that concepts lsquorest on functionsrsquo (A 68B 93)Kant defines lsquofunctionrsquo as lsquothe unity of the action of ordering different representationsunder a common onersquo (A 68B 93) Thus concepts rest on functions in the sense that theyprovide the representation of unity that belongs to and guides a synthesis so that theunified synthesis can be abstractly captured by a kind of function or mapping togetherthat links representations

20 This account is indebted to Kitcher 1990 who also sees syntheses as functions gener-ating a lsquocontentual connectionrsquo (117) that establishes an lsquoexistential dependencersquo among

representations (103 117) But not every existential dependence relation among contentsamounts to Kantian synthesis Suppose I see a picture of my friend Peter who is in Franceand this gives me the idea of Peter (via resemblance the second Humean law of associa-tion) The second representation is existentially dependent on the first the idea exists inme because the first (visual) representation occurred Is the second also contentually depen-dent on the first In a sense it is but in a sense not and the difference brings out Kantrsquosdeparture from a merely causal theory of association It is true that the second is an idea of Peter because the first was an impression of a picture resembling him But the Humeanaccount does not envision that the content of my idea of Peter is altered by the associationassociation effects a mere co-location in the mind of the two representations without

necessarily altering the idearsquos content Kantian synthesis by contrast pulls apart elementsof the contents of the inputs and reorders them in the output representation which is whysynthesis is essentially conceptual not lsquomerely causalrsquo combination The lsquoreorderingrsquo of inputs by synthesis follows a pattern provided by a concept not order that arises auto-matically from the partial contents themselves according to laws Otherwise we still have





only a case of Humean association (now operating among the simpler parts of the repre-sentations) What makes conceptually driven synthesis distinctive then is that combina-tion is dictated at the level of the contents for which no particular causal realization of the

process would matter (Two syntheses could be instances of the same synthetic patterneven if they were realized in processes where the contents were lsquocarriedrsquo by different kindsof objects which would fall under different causal laws)

21 Waxman 1991 offers such a lsquobottom uprsquo approach to the theory of cognition as doesKitcher (see her 1990 and 1995) though my account is nevertheless indebted to hers onmany details Perhaps the most interesting recent interpretation on this general questionof approach is that of Longuenesse 1998 whose reading combines elements of both lsquotopdownrsquo and lsquobottom uprsquo approaches by giving the categories two different essential rolesin the process of cognition one at each end of the procedure of constructing empiricalknowledge

22 See Longuenesse 1998 for a provocative account of Kantrsquos lsquoguiding threadrsquo idea23 Thus both the abstract concepts of the understanding and the concrete data of sense

contribute essentially to the resulting perception Some features of the table (eg browncolor) are conferred by sense and without such detailed determinations the conceptualstructures of the understanding would have no objective reality So the categories do notfully determine the empirical content that fills in experience but they nevertheless constrainthe broad shape taken by that content whatever the empirical details turn out to be

24 The locus classicus for this traditional conception of a priori synthesis (and for criticismof Kantrsquos position) is Bennett 1966 111ndash17 who assumes that if it is to be a priori transcen-dental synthesis must somehow occur outside of time Since no action like synthesis couldhappen outside time the whole doctrine seems lsquodesperately unpromisingrsquo (111) Kitcher

1982 53ndash9 disagrees treating transcendental syntheses as a special subclass of empiricalsyntheses known to exist in a special way (viz as conditions of the possibility of experi-ence) Her view however still leaves transcendental syntheses as separate acts of the mindrather than making such synthesis an aspect of all (veridical) empirical syntheses

The conception of a priori synthesis defended here owes the most to Guyer While healso sometimes talks about the a priori synthesis as a separate action of the mind fromempirical syntheses (Guyer 1980 205 206ndash7 208 1987 136) the account of synthesis inGuyer 1989 (see note 8 above) offers a reading of the relation between a priori and empir-ical elements of cognition similar to the one I propose (NB Guyer 1980 also showsconvincingly that Kantrsquos a priori synthesis must be understood as an action of the mind not

as an unfortunate way of expressing a point about a priori criteria for knowledge asBennett would have preferred Kant to mean)

25 For extended treatment of that distinction see Pippin 198226 Kant insists that mathematical proof depends on ostensive construction to reach its

results (see Friedman 1985 1992a Shabel 1997 1998 and for an earlier version of the pointPhilip Kitcher 1975) Kantrsquos view is a good account of eighteenth century textbook mathe-matics (see esp Shabel 1998) In particular the essential reliance on the diagram inEuclidean proofs provides strong evidence for Kantrsquos views on construction and as Shabel1997 shows the textbooks Kant used in teaching his mathematics courses treated thisgeometrical procedure as fundamental to mathematical science presenting arithmetic and

algebra as similarly dependent on construction27 Note here that angle size is not a feature abstracted from by this schema in the sameway as side size For we can extend the present construction to show the equality of thethree angles (by iterating the construction strategy deployed in Euclidrsquos Bk I Prop 5proving the equality of the angles formed by the base of an isosceles triangle) It follows





that the angles of an equilateral triangle are equal to one another and no instantiation thatlacks this property will count as a proper filling in of the schema provided by the construc-tion of Euclid I 1 The key implication is that the schema carries lsquointuitiversquo information in

Kantrsquos sense That is the property about angle size is dictated by the schema but only because of proofs which appeal essentially to intuition and would not be possible on the basis of concepts alone

28 The structural features already expressed in the schema will also be the onesexploited by the synthetic a priori proofs that rely on the construction in question Forexample Lisa Shabel has persuasively argued (in her 1997 1998) that geometricalconstructions carry information about relative magnitudes by virtue of explicitly repre-senting gross partwhole relations among features of the constructed figure For asummary of some details relevant to Shabelrsquos results see also Anderson (unpublishedmanuscript-a)

29 For a discussion of the importance of the Schematism with important similarities tothe one offered here see Rosenberg (1997) which focuses especially on the way thedoctrine of schematism is supposed to solve the problem of the unity of perception (iehow the presentational or phenomenal content of a perception is combined with its cogni-tive conceptual or propositional content as a cognition of a particular thing under a givenconcept)

30 This is of course the task of Kantrsquos lsquoSchematismrsquo chapter (A 137ndash47 B 176ndash87)31 See Friedman 1992a (esp chs 3 and 4) 1992b and 199332 See Hatfield 1997 and also Hatfield 199033 The case for attributing this conception to Locke might not seem quite as strong to

some as the parallel case for Descartes But consider the following remarks from Lockersquos

Essay (following Locke 1975)[Some ideas offer themselves to us more readily than others] Though that too beaccording as the Organs of our Bodies and Powers of our Minds happen to beemployrsquod God having fitted Men with faculties and means to discover receive and retainTruths accordingly as they are employrsquod The great difference that is to be found in theNotions of Mankind is from the difference they put their Faculties to whilst some misimploy their power of Assent Others attain great degrees of knowledge (I iv 22 emphasis in original)

Here Locke clearly envisions lsquoPowers of our Mindsrsquo which have a right and wrong usethat is proper to them and which produce knowledge (only) when rightly used Or again

so far as this faculty [of accurately discriminating ideas] is in it self dull or is not rightlymade use of for the distinguishing of one thing from another so far our Notions areconfused and our Reason and Judgment disturbed or misled (II xi 2)34 Even Hume clearly recognized such powers of the mind to apprehend relations of

ideas by the time of the Enquiry (IV i Hume 1975 25ndash32)35 For a clear elaboration of this view see Dretske 2000 which claims that norms lsquocome

from us ndash from our intentions purposes desiresrsquo (Dretske 2000 245) This means theycome from particular (contingently present) mental formations not from being a mind assuch Even a philosopher like Brandom (1994) who argues (against the current grain) thatnormativity is essential to certain aspects of our mental life (language use full intentional-

ity) still takes norms to be fundamentally social not intrinsic to individual mindednessThus for Brandom animals have psychological lives and share responsive capacities anal-ogous to our lower cognitive processes but they possess only lsquoderivative intentionalityrsquoprecisely because they do not operate in the right kinds of normative social practices Fullyintentional Brandomian minds are perhaps inherently susceptible to be trained to become





responsive to norms but the norms are in the training they are not already there in themind built in waiting to be revealed by Cartesian cognitive meditation That evenBrandom is so naturalistic in this respect is one measure of how far we have departed from

the early modern conception of intrinsically normative powers of mind36 To regain a feel for the difference recall that training people in these right andwrong uses is the goal of Descartesrsquos keen insistence that we meditate with him Descartesknows that it will be difficult for us to attain clear and distinct perceptions he designs histext so carefully because he wants to get us to experience the correct use of the intellect ieits use freed from the distractions of the senses On the importance of seeing the

Meditations within the tradition of spiritual training exercises see Hatfield 1986 Kosman1986 and A Rorty 1986

37 The need to explain the mechanisms of normative cognition comes into sharperfocus due to Kantrsquos separation of empirical psychology from the transcendental theory of cognition Empirical psychology treats mental events in independence from their norma-tive properties so in light of Kantrsquos distinction it no longer goes without saying that theycan be intrinsically normative That now needs explanation Empiricists (especially Hume)also often adopted a lsquopsychologicalrsquo perspective on the mind but did not similarly contrastit against the mindrsquos normative use in cognition As a result their explanations of knowl-edge focus either on topics within psychology (which do not address cognitionrsquos norma-tivity from Kantrsquos viewpoint) or on arguments that the mind cannot acquire certain kindsof knowledge Hatfield (1997 30) plausibly suggests that Locke saw no need to explain themindrsquos normative cognitive power since his aim was to deny that it could grasp realessences in any case On the positive side Locke rests content with the visual metaphorthat the mind simply perceives connections of ideas (eg the lsquovisible connectionsrsquo of IV iii

14) without analysis of such lsquoperceptionrsquo beyond appeals to introspection (see IV i 2ndash4IV iii 1ndash4)

It could be argued that rationalist philosophers who made more extensive claims forthe intellect did try to explain its achievements eg by appealing to a divinely guaran-teed power of intellectual intuition or to various forms of divinely established harmony

between our ideas and essences resident in Godrsquos intellect From Kantrsquos point of viewhowever such accounts lack real explanatory power particularly when it comes to themechanics of the connection between knowledge and its objects As Locke already pointsout (IV iii 6) we explain connections between mind and world via divine interventionprecisely when we no longer understand how they are possible For Kantrsquos part pure intel-

lectual intuition counts among the lsquomagical powersrsquo (A xiii) and any lsquopreformation systemof pure reasonrsquo (B 167ndash8) forsakes explanation of the mechanisms of the normative connec-tion involved in knowledge since it makes that connection accidental from the point of view of the cognition and its object themselves Comments from an anonymous reviewerfor EJP helped clarify my thinking on these issues

38 See B 68 B 71ndash2 A 51B 75 B 135 B 138ndash9 B 145 and as mentioned in the previousnote the A Preface dismissal of lsquomagical powersrsquo capable of satisfying the lsquodogmaticallyenthusiastic lust for knowledgersquo (A xiii) in metaphysics

39 As Kant wrote in the opening paragraphs of the B edition lsquoThere is no doubt whateverthat all our cognition begins with experience But although all our cognition commences

with experience yet it does not on that account all arise from experience For it could well bethat even our experiential cognition is a composite of that which we receive through impres-sions and that which our own cognitive faculty provides out of itselfrsquo (B 1)

40 Angle brackets (lt gt) indicate the mention of a concept41 Cf a related point about Kantrsquos argument in the A Deduction in Guyer (1987 106ndash7)





42 This idea is ubiquitous in the Critique for example Kant writes that lsquoExperiencetherefore has principles of its form which ground it a priori namely general rules of unityin the synthesis of appearancesrsquo (A 157B 196) and that lsquothe empirical truth of appearances

is satisfactorily secured and sufficiently distinguished from its kinship with dreams if both [space and time] are correctly and thoroughly connected up according to empiricallaws in one experiencersquo (A 492B 520ndash1) Cf also A 177B 220 A 181B 223ndash4 A 216B263 B 278ndash9 A 228B 281 A 229ndash30B 282 and A 494ndash5B 523 The texts at B 278ndash9 andA 492B 520ndash1 explicitly emphasize that syntheses failing to conform to the rules of unityfor experience are non-veridical

43 This idea is related to the deep thought behind Kantrsquos theory of time-determinationin the Analytic which claims that without objective rules for time-ordering experiences itis not possible to represent a difference between a representation of a change in one thingand a representation of two separate things For a sustained account of the theory of time-

determination see Guyer 1987 207ndash32944 Kantrsquos Transcendental Deduction of the Categories argues that the unity in thecontent of experience discussed in this paragraph (the unity of the world represented) is

just the objective correlate of the unity of the consciousness of the representing subject (theunity of apperception) The argument there attempts to exploit our knowledge of the unityof apperception on the subject side to show the validity of the categories necessary to bringabout such unity in our representation of the world on the object side

45 Thus Kant writes that if the causal law were apparently violated in some represen-tation lsquothen I would have to hold it to be only a subjective play of my imaginings and if Istill represented something by it I would have to call it a mere dreamrsquo (A 201ndash2B 247) oragain lsquoit does not follow that every intuitive representation of outer things includes

their existence for that may well be the product of imagination (in dreams as well as delu-sions) Whether this or that putative experience is not mere imagination must be ascer-tained according to its particular determinations and through its coherence with thecriteria of all actual experiencersquo (B 278ndash9)

We can handle perceptual illusions in essentially the same way as dreams When I seea stick in water and it appears bent the content of the experience resists integration withother nearby experiences (eg perception by touch of the stickrsquos straightness the percep-tion of the straight stick being pulled out of the water) Of course I can connect the expe-rience to others by causal laws (by reverting to laws of optics and sensory psychology)

but such connections require me to treat the representations as themselves objects covered

by the relevant causes rather than applying causal interpretation to the apparent contentof the representations Precisely this is what marks them as lsquosubjectiversquo in Kantrsquos senseThey belong to my lsquosubjective unity of consciousnessrsquo (B 139) which is valid only for meprecisely because the causal story connecting its constituents depends on contingentinitial conditions of my psychological situation Nevertheless even this subjective unitylsquois derived from the former [objective unity] under given conditions in concretorsquo (B 140)in the sense that the causal laws of optics and psychology that explain the illusion areobjective and bring the representations considered now as objects into the lsquooriginalunity of consciousnessrsquo or lsquotranscendental unity of apperceptionrsquo (B 140 139) Thanks toAlison Simmons Daniel Sutherland and Andrew Janiak for pressing me to clarify this

point46 On the basis of reasons like those suggested in the text in fact Kant seems to have been gripped by the intuition that the binding force of any and every norm would have to be explained by some a priori ground In the case of moral philosophy for instance Kantwrites that





These principles [of morality] must have an origin entirely and completely a priori andmust at the same time derive from this their sovereign authority Hence everythingthat is empirical is as a contribution to the principle of morality highly injurious to

the purity of morals for in morals the proper worth of an absolutely good will liesprecisely in this ndash that the principle of action is free from all influence by contingentgrounds (Groundwork 426 my emphasis)

I discuss the point in detail and raise difficulties for Kantrsquos view in Anderson (manu-script-b)

47 Kant gives the transcendental idealist upshot of his theory of cognition especiallyprominent play at the end of the Transcendental Deduction in both editions (see A 129ndash30and B 163ndash5) but he makes essentially the same point repeatedly throughout the AnalyticSee for example A 139ndash40B 178ndash9 and A 146ndash7B 186ndash7 in the Schematism chapter A166B 206ndash7 in the Axioms A 180ndash1B 223ndash4 at the end of the general introduction to theAnalogies a number of places in the Postulates of Empirical Thought (A 219ndash20B 266ndash7A 224B 272 A 227ndash8B 280) and prominently the General Note to the System of Principles (B 289 294) There is also of course the general discussion of related issues inthe Analyticrsquos closing chapter on Phenomena and Noumena

48 I am grateful to Kritika Yegnashankaran for the invitation to give the talk thatresulted in this paper Thanks to Lori Gruen Paul Guyer Gary Hatfield Vittorio HoumlsleAndrew Janiak Stephan Kaumlufer Joshua Landy Elijah Millgram Katherine Preston TimSchroeder Alison Simmons Daniel Sutherland and Allen Wood for helpful commentsand conversations about earlier versions and to audiences at Stanford University San JoseState University California Polytechnic Institute (San Luis Obispo) Arizona StateUniversity the University of Miami and the Ninth International Kant Congress for useful

comments and questions

REFERENCES

Allison Henry (1983) Kantrsquos Transcendental Idealism New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress

Anderson R Lanier (unpublished manuscript-a) lsquoContextualizing Kantrsquos Philosophy of Mathematicsrsquo Stanford University

mdashmdash- (manuscript-b) lsquoNormativity Psychologism and the Human Sciences anInvestigation into the Motivations of Early Neo-Kantianismrsquo Stanford University

Brandom Robert (1994) Making it Explicit Reasoning Representing and DiscursiveCommitment Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Brook Andrew (1994) Kant and the Mind Cambridge Cambridge University PressBennett Jonathan (1966) Kantrsquos Analytic Cambridge Cambridge University PressCassirer Ernst (1981 [1918]) Kantrsquos Life and Thought Trans J Haden New Haven CT Yale

University PressCohen Hermann (1871) Kants Theorie der Erfahrung Berlin Ferd Duumlmmlers

Verlagsbuchhandlung Harrwitz und Gossmann Reprinted as Kants Theorie der

Erfahrung (1871) Hildesheim Georg Olms Verlag 1987 (Band I3 of Cohenrsquos Werke)Dretske Fred (2000) lsquoNorms History and the Constitution of the Mentalrsquo in his

Perception Knowledge and Belief Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 242ndash57Falkenstein Lorne (1995) Kantrsquos Intuitionism a Commentary on the Transcendental Aesthetic

Toronto University of Toronto Press





Friedman Michael (1980) lsquoKantrsquos Theory of Geometryrsquo Philosophical Review 94 455ndash506mdashmdash- (1992a) Kant and the Exact Sciences Cambridge MA Harvard University Pressmdashmdash- (1992b) lsquoCausal Laws and the Foundations of Natural Sciencersquo In Guyer ed 1992b

mdashmdash- (1993) lsquoKant and the Twentieth Centuryrsquo In P Parrini ed Kant and ContemporaryEpistemology The Hague Kluwer pp 27ndash46Guyer Paul (1980) lsquoKant on Apperception and A priori Synthesisrsquo American Philosophical

Quarterly 17 205ndash12mdashmdash- (1987) Kant and the Claims of Knowledge Cambridge Cambridge University Pressmdashmdash- (1989) lsquoPsychology and the Transcendental Deductionrsquo In E Foumlrster ed Kantrsquos

Transcendental Deductions the Three lsquoCritiquesrsquo and the lsquoOpus Postumumrsquo Stanford CAStanford University Press

mdashmdash- (1992a) lsquoThe Transcendental Deduction of the Categoriesrsquo In Guyer ed 1992bmdashmdash- ed (1992b) The Cambridge Companion to Kant Cambridge Cambridge University

PressHatfield Gary (1986) lsquoThe Senses and the Fleshless Eye the Meditations as Cognitive

Exercisesrsquo In Rorty ed 1986bmdashmdash- (1990) The Natural and the Normative Theories of Spatial Perception from Kant to

Helmholtz Cambridge MA MIT Pressmdashmdash- (1992) lsquoEmpirical Rational and Transcendental Psychology Psychology as Science

and as Philosophyrsquo In Guyer ed 1992bmdashmdash- (1997) lsquoThe Workings of the Intellect Mind and Psychologyrsquo In Easton P ed Logic

and the Workings of the Mind the Logic of Ideas and Faculty Psychology in Early ModernPhilosophy Atascadero CA RidgeviewNorth American Kant Society pp 21ndash45

Hume David (1975) Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Ed L A Selby-Bigge P

Nidditch (3rd ed) Oxford The Clarendon Pressmdashmdash- (1978) A Treatise of Human Nature Ed L A Selby-Bigge P Nidditch (2nd ed)

Oxford The Clarendon PressKant Immanuel (Akademie) Kants gesammelte Schriften Hrsg Koumlniglich preussischen

Akademie der Wissenschaften Berlin Reimerde Gruyter 1902 ffmdashmdash- (1997 [1783] Prol) Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics that may be Able to Come

Forward as a Science Trans Gary Hatfield Cambridge Cambridge University PressCited following the pagination of the Akademie edition

mdashmdash- (1997 [1785] Groundwork ) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals Trans MaryGregor Cambridge Cambridge University Press Cited following the pagination of the

Akademie editionmdashmdash- (1998 [17811787] AB) Critique of Pure Reason Trans P Guyer and A Wood

Cambridge Cambridge University Press Citations are to the pagination of the first(A=1781) and second (B=1787) editions

Kemp Smith Norman (1923) A Commentary to Kantrsquos lsquoCritique of Pure Reasonrsquo LondonMacMillan

Kitcher Patricia (1982) lsquoKant on Self-Identityrsquo Philosophical Review 91 41ndash72mdashmdash- (1984) lsquoKantrsquos Real Selfrsquo In A Wood ed Self and Nature in Kantrsquos Philosophy Ithaca

NY Cornell University Pressmdashmdash- (1990) Kantrsquos Transcendental Psychology Oxford Oxford University Press

mdashmdash- (1995) lsquoRevisiting Kantrsquos Epistemology Skepticism Apriority and PsychologismrsquoNoucircs 29 285ndash315mdashmdash- (1999) lsquoKant on Self-Consciousnessrsquo Philosophical Review 108 346ndash86Kitcher Philip (1975) lsquoKant and the Foundations of Mathematicsrsquo Philosophical Review 84

23ndash50





Kosman Aryeh (1986) lsquoThe Naive Narrator Meditation in Descartesrsquo Meditationsrsquo InRorty ed 1986b

Lange F A (1876) Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart

3rd ed Iserlohn J Baedecker Trans E C Thomas New York Harcourt Brace and Co1925 (NB Quoted translation is mine)Locke John (1975) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Ed P H Nidditch Oxford

Oxford University PressLonguenesse Beatrice (1998) Kant and the Capacity to Judge Sensibility and Discursivity in the

Transcendental Analytic of the lsquoCritique of Pure Reasonrsquo Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press

Pippin Robert (1982) Kantrsquos Theory of Form New Haven CT Yale University PressRorty Ameacutelie Oskenberg (1986a) lsquoThe Structure of Descartesrsquo Meditationsrsquo In Rorty 1986bmdashmdash- ed (1986b) Essays on Descartesrsquo lsquoMeditationsrsquo Berkeley CA University of California

PressRorty Richard (1979) Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature Princeton NJ Princeton

University PressRosenberg Jay F (1997) lsquoKantian Schemata and the Unity of Perceptionrsquo In A Burri ed

Sprache und DenkenLanguage and Thought Berlin W de Gruyter pp 175ndash90Shabel Lisa (1997) lsquoMathematics in Kantrsquos Critical Philosophy Reflections on

Mathematical Practicersquo PhD Diss University of Pennsylvania Ann Arbor MIUniversity Microfilms

mdashmdash- (1998) lsquoKant on the lsquoSymbolic Constructionrsquo of Mathematical Conceptsrsquo Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 29 589ndash621

Strawson P F (1966 The Bounds of Sense an Essay on Kantrsquos Critique of Pure Reason London

Methuen and CoWaxman Wayne (1991) Kantrsquos Model of the Mind Oxford Oxford University PressWindelband Wilhelm (1884) lsquoKritische oder genetische Methodersquo In Praumlludien Aufsaumltze

und Reden zur Einleitung in die Philosophie 1st ed Freiburg i B und Tuumlbingen JC BMohr

Wolff Robert Paul (1963) Kantrsquos Theory of Mental Activity a Commentary on theTranscendental Analytic of the lsquoCritique of Pure Reasonrsquo Cambridge MA HarvardUniversity Press




normative force from purely logical relations among their concepts The story Iwill present suggests that in fact later worries about psychologism were deci-sively shaped by Kantrsquos question about cognition It made visible basic assump-

tions about normativity built into the early modern conception of mind whoseprevious defense was not satisfactory Kantrsquos own agenda was not to underminethese assumptions however but to explain knowledge within the early modernframework by appealing to actions of the mind As a result he had to addresstwo main points First he needed an account of the nature of the mental opera-tions that generate normative cognition The Critiquersquos detailed theory of synthe-sis discussed in sections 2 and 3 fulfills this function and simultaneouslyprovides the model in terms of which Kant executes the workrsquos main argumentsSecond if the resulting knowledge is to count as true Kant must explain how

cognitive synthesis is reliably connected to the objects of knowledge I will arguein section 5 that the idealist lsquoCopernican revolutionrsquo supplies his response to thischallenge thereby completing the explanation of cognitive normativity begun bythe theory of synthesis

It is thus no accident that Kant thought his organizing question was so impor-tant It leads directly into the core arguments of the lsquoTranscendental Analyticrsquo ndashthe arguments in which Kant defends his systematic account of nature and ourknowledge of it My aim here is to uncover a basic argumentative strategy thatguides Kantrsquos procedure throughout the Analytic This pattern of reasoning tiestogether three of Kantrsquos principal doctrines all of which are often dismissed

nowadays as indefensible 1) the view that mental actions of synthesizing repre-sentations are central to the explanation of knowledge 2) Kantrsquos account of math-ematical proof and 3) transcendental idealism The resulting interpretationmakes a certain amount of sense of these seemingly embarrassing views andshows why Kant thought they were so central Understanding the importance heattributed to these ideas will also clarify some of our own philosophical prob-lems and indicate the theoretical costs of some elements of our current philo-sophical common sense

1 Two Alternative Readings of Kantrsquos Question

We can frame our problem by reference to two broad approaches to understand-ing Kantrsquos question which were well developed in the nineteenth century andalso have twentieth century adherents One offers a psychological reading of Kantrsquos Critique the other an epistemological reading Each approach has somethingto recommend it but both also have difficulties I will seek to build on theirstrengths in my interpretation below

The psychological reading understands Kant to be offering a theory of theworkings of the cognitive mind This idea (recently revived by Patricia Kitcher1990 and others3) provides a natural way to understand Kantrsquos lsquohow possiblersquoquestion ndash viz it is a question about the ways and means of cognition To askhow knowledge is possible in this sense is to ask what the mechanisms are by






























































































































































































































6 Conclusions














NOTES























10



































































































REFERENCES





































23ndash50
















































































































































































































































6 Conclusions














NOTES























10



































































































REFERENCES





































23ndash50





























NOTES























10



































































































REFERENCES





































23ndash50





































10



































































































REFERENCES





































23ndash50











































































































REFERENCES





































23ndash50













































23ndash50





















anderson (synthesis, cognitive normativity, and the meaning of kant’s question).pdf

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