The First half of the first Draft:TCD Paper due Tuesday

Total Word Count is supposed to be 2000 words. Ha!

If I finish the next 2000 words in the next hour, I'm going to email this to Dr. Pepper himself, the Dr. Pendlebury!


A Note on this Exposition

This comes as an Undergraduate Academic Paper in Spring 2009, with points addressed to specific lecture commentaries, interpretations, and assumptions made by Professor Michael Pendlebury, the lecturer for this class. Its purpose is above all to show the lecturer an understanding of The Critique of Pure Reason.

Introduction

Kant's Transcendental Deduction is the centerpiece of The Critique of Pure Reason that argues we are allowed to apply the categories to representations. Kant's B Edition of 1787 is universally acknowledged as the better argued of the two and consequently it will be the one discussed here.
Conditionally, as a review of this material, I will put forth some of my criticism as to why this is important philosophy. Surely the security of all knowledge against skepticism and available fault are essential toward a good life. It is therefore more relevant to make that leap as a student from the theory that Kant has placed before the reader to the way of life he envisions as securing.

The Organization of this Exposition

The organization of this paper is based firstly on the actual divisions Kant has in The Critique of Pure Reason. Next, there is a constraint made by the Lecturer for the sake of time of 2000 words, or approximately 5-8 pages.
The Transcendental Deduction of the Categories is a 27-part argument for the conclusion of why one has the right to apply the categories to experience, around half of which are in the B Deduction. I will follow Pendlebury's class handout on the Transcendental Deduction, but in addition I will assert two main halves of this greater argument for the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. The first is how Kant establishes the Transcendental Unity of Apperception, and the second will be how the categories could apply to this Transcendental Unity of Apperception. I understand this first half as regarding sections 15-20, and this second half regarding sections 22-26, with sections 13, 14, and 27 acting as transitions and summaries of the main points. The Lecturer has made care to point out that the first half of section 24 and all of section 26 are of great importance, and following this, due emphasis will be made.

The First Half of the B Version of the Transcendental Deduction

Pendlebury says, about section 21, “Remark” that Kant thinks he has “established something like the following conditional: If any representation is in the transcendental unity of apperception, it is brought there by the categories.” In this way, I believe that Kant has identified the Transcendental Unity of Apperception and the conditional the Lecturer identifies.
In section 12, Kant says, “In every cognition of an object there is, namely, unity of the concept, which one can call qualitative unity insofar as by that only the unity of the comprehension of the manifold of cognition is thought, as , say, the unity of th theme in play, a speech, or a fable. Second, truth in respect of the consequences” and “Third, finally, perfection, which consists in this plurality conversely being traced back to the unity of the concept” (B114; from section 12). Thus Kant establishes a sort of unity of representations that is established by firstly the various datum that are in conjunction with each other, the consequences of their conjunction, and the “perfection” which I understand to be a harmony of logical coherence; that there should not be any contradicting sense datum after a final application of reason.1
Kant sets out his project in contrast with Locke and Hume in Section 14, and perhaps this is the most clear to readers. He says, “David Hume recognized that in order to be able to do the latter it is necessary that these concepts would have to have their origin a priori. But since he could not explain at all how it is possible ofr the understand ing to think of concepts that in themselves are not combined in the understanding as still necessarily combined in the object, and it never occurred to him that perhaps the understanding itself, by means of these concepts, could be originator of the experience in which its objects are encountered, he thus,” (boldface mine) is driven to “skepticism” (B127-8). So Kant's solution is here his identified contrast with Hume: “the understanding itself” could be the originator of the experience in which its objects are encountered. This is an assertion of knowledge against skepticism, neglect of application of the categories; and Locke's enthusiasm, wrongful application of the categories. In this section Kant concludes, contra skepticism and in open opposition to Hume, “The empirical derivation” (which Hume realized could not happen) “cannot be reconciled with the reality of the sceintific cognition a priorithat we possess, that naely of pure mathematics and general natural science, and is therefore refuted by the fact” (B 128). In lay, that we do have synthetic a priori knowledge, and so the burden of proof is how this is possible, not if this is possible. The right to the application of the categories is therefore Kant's answer in this case.
What is the “understanding itself?” This is the first half of the Transcendental Deduction Part B that I acknowledge.
Sections 15 and 16 identify particular characteristics of the Transcendental Unity of Apperception: the unity afforded by combination in Section 15, and the difference between this Unity of Apperception and a self-consciousness in Section 16. In Section 15, Kant establishes the “possibility of a combination in general,” which is the potential for a mind to be given any number of appearances in a single reality. The combination is the way that one mind might have a table, a pen, and a book in one single receipt of sense datum without a break in logical coherence.2 In Section 16, the argument asserts that there is a distinct difference between the unity of apperception and self consciousness (Pendlebury handout). This seems true to my common sense, as I am able to perceive the computer I am typing on without necessarily asserting (read: consciously) that I am combining the perceptions of the words, the screen, the books on the table, and so forth.3