JVB on the Transcendental Deduction of A Edition

Here's what I have so far From JVB on the Transcendental Deduction. Unfortunately, she gives as much airplay to summarizing the A version as she does to the B version, badmouthing the A version all of the way.

I copied her A version so that I can get a grasp on what Kant wants to say, as opposed to the second, successful proof. The 1787 proof (as the B edition is called) is what Kant needs to say. Whatever. I think I'm going to copy some of Kant, and some JVB and maybe a few other authors.



The A edition Deduction


Everyone agrees that the 1781 proof fails miserably. Nevertheless, the argument introduces the key notions of the synthesis of imagination, the transcendental unity of apperception, and the correlation between objectivity and subjectivity. Moreover, independently of Kant's larger project, it soundly refutes the empiricist doctrine that all ideas are derived from experienced. Finally, the contrast between the A and B edition deductions brings into relief the key elements of the more successful proof. Thus there are good reasons to examine the first edition proof.
Kant begins by claiming that it is impossible for an a priori concept to represent an object independently of intuition, for only intuition can give objective reality or content to the concept. Otherwise it would “be only the logical form of a concept,” and not a concept through which one thinks an object. Since the “objective reality” of a n concept is its application to whatever exists, his point is that the content of any meaningful concept must relate in some way to spatiotempororal appearances. If it failed to do so, the concept might have the logical form of a predicate, namely generality, but would lack any feature allowing us to recognize instances in experience. At A96Kant says establishing the validity of pure concepts requires demonstrating their necessity for experience of objects.
Kant next makes a point essential to the deduction, that to qualify as a cognition, a representation must be inherently complex. Perhaps because of its intuitive plausibility, he offers no support of it here, remarking only that cognition “is a whole of compared and connected representations” (A97). At A99 he implicitly links this claim to the fact that all representations occur in one time. According to this view, a simple, unanalyzable impression could not by itself represents n object. In the B edition Kant justifies the complexity of cognition more systematically.
Although most commentators take th four numbered sections detailing the threefold synthesis to constitute the A edition deduction, the Preliminary Remark claims that this discussion is only preparatory into the systematic exposition, located in section 3. In fact, that later discussion contains many points that assume prominence in the B edition deduction. Despite Kant's description o f the eexposition as systematic, his failure ot present a unified argument clearly necessitated the complete reworking of the diduction.
To understand the A edition strategy we need to recognize his peculiar treatment of the threefold synthesis. As Paton points out, the thee “parts” are not separate stages but different ways of die scribing the same process. The parts are related in Chinese box fashion, so that each subsequently described synthesis is contained in the stage previously described. Thus the first description, of the synthesis of apprehension in intuition, gives the most general characterization. Kant then argues that process must include the second “part,” the synthesis of reproduction in the imagination. The third step similarly argues that the synthesis of reproduction presupposes the synthesis of recognition in the concept. Finally Kant introduces the ultimate necessary condition of the entire complex process, the transcendental unity of apperception or “I think.”
Kant begins the three-step argument by claiming that all representations are subject to time, and therefore bear temporal relations to every other representation (A98-9). Consequently “they must all be ordered, connected, and brought into relations” in time. H e next returns to his characterization of cognition as complex, pointing out that as a cognition of an object, every intuition contains a manifold. In order to recognize this complexity, we must apprehend the parts successively, at distinct times. The process of unifying the successively apprehended parts into one representation is the synthesis of apprehension in intuition. Kant says that although the intuition provides a manifold, ti cannot be “contained in one representation, without the occurrence of such a synthesis” (A99). Not until the next step does he attribute this activity to the imagination.
The first step assumes that we in fact have empirical intuitions that we recognize as complex. A complex representation is a representation of a single, unified, thing made up of parts. Recognizing the complexity means being aware of both the parts and their unity. To intuit an apple, for example, as red, hard, juicy, in a certain space, and existing through a certain time, means representing it as one object having these diverse characteristics. Now because the sensibility passively receives the intuitive data, our recognition of both complexity and unity requires us actively to discriminate the parts before unifying them. As Kant says, “for as contained in one moment no representation can ever be anything other than absolute unity” (A99). In other words, any data apprehended only instantaneously or non-successively cannot be recognized as having parts. Now this view has an interesting implication namely that the manifold of intuition is not composed of absolute or “simple” parts. Because space and time are infinitely divisible, any intuited manifold can be discriminated into parts of any degree of complexity (e.g., spatial and temporal parts). In consequence, the degree of complexity is relative, depending on the fineness with which one discriminates parts. Kant's point is that producing a unified complex representation presupposes two distinct capacities: apprehending the parts successively and unifying them into a whole.
At A99-100 Kant remarks in passing that synthesis must also be performed on the a priori manifold given in intuition. Space and time, too, are represented as wholes divisible into parts. Just as sense impressions must be connected to represent unified objects, so the spatial and temporal data must be connected to represent one space and one time. This hints at the dual role of pure intuition: as forms of sensibility, space and time provide frameworks for receiving the empirical data; as pure manifolds, they provide a content for pure concepts of the understanding. The A edition focus on empirical intuition obscures the second role, a defect remedied in 1787. Here Kant merely asserts that there is a pure as well as an empirical synthesis of apprehension. He should say, of course, that the synthesis of apprehension has both pure and empirical aspects.
The next step argues that for the synthesis of apprehension to occur, the imagination must reproduce representations. Unfortunately the order of presentation muddles the argument, which has two steps. The main point, located in the second half of the second paragraph, is that apprehending identifiable objects requires reproducing in imagination the previously apprehended parts. Kant then argues that this process is a transcendental act of th imagination, presupposed in all empirical association. The entire argument assumes that when we have a single complex representation, we are aware of both the discriminated parts and the unity binding them as a whole. Now previously Kant stated that the parts must be discriminated in successive moments. So to end up with a unified representation, the imagination must reproduce the parts previously apprehended. Consider the example of counting. The resulting number is a complex whole composed of units. Kant points out that if one did not reproduce the previously apprehended units as one Progresses, “no whole representation...could ever arise” (A102). When counting to two, for example, one must think of the second unit as distinct from the first unit. Otherwise one would merely apprehend one unit twice. But in order to represent this relation between the two units, the imagination must actually reproduce the thought of the first unit. The same is true in drawing a line or thinking of some period of time. Each succeeding part must be thought in its relation to the already apprehended parts to represent the entire line or time period. As Michael Young points out, this does not mean “reliving” the experience, but rather incorporating the thought of the previous parts into the thought of each successively represented part. These examples are noteworthy because they involve the synthesis of parts of space and time: even our a priori intuitions provide cognition only on the condition that they contain a thoroughgoing synthesis of reproduction. Consequently the synthesis of imagination is grounded “on a priori principles, and one must assume a pure transcendental synthesis of this power, which grounds even the possibility of all experience” (A101).
Kant reinforces this conclusion at A100-1, by criticizing attempts to derive ideas of objects from associations based on experience. Here he argues that the psychological process of association presupposes the a priori synthesis of the manifolds of space and time. Suppose, for example, that smelling a certain odor evokes a certain childhood memory. In this empirical association, the imagination must connect not only the qualitative aspects but also the times and places of the two experiences. But the ground that permits identifying times and spaces cannot be derived from the association, since spatiotemporal regions are presupposed in discriminating experiences. Thus Kant concludes that the imagination must perform a transcendental function, presupposed by experience, enabling us to “call up” the previously apprehended parts of the manifold. Reproducibility is a necessary condition for representing not only empirical objects but also space and time themselves as complex wholes.
The third section is the most complex, for here Kant introduces both the relation between concepts and the transcendental unity of apperception, and the correlation between objectivity and subjectivity. In this way he relates pure concepts to both the necessity of self-consciousness and the idea of objectivity. Unfortunately, the argument is completely done in by its unsystematic presentation. Kant first argues that the synthesis of reproduction requires the synthesis of recognition in a concept: “Without consciousness that which we think is the very same as what we thought a moment before, all reproduction in the series of representations would be in vain” (A103). This requires the use of concepts because recognizing something as the same thing previously apprehended requires conceiving that thing under some predicate F. In counting, for example, one can reproduce previously apprehended units only if one recognizes the reproduced parts as the same units previously apprehended. Ultimately, to represent the resulting integer, we must conceive the units as parts related by the addition operation: Kant says the concept of number “consists solely in the consciousness of this unity of the synthesis” (A103). In other words, to generate representations of unified things composed of parts, we must employ concepts of both the whole towards which one is progressing, as well as the parts composing it. Although Kant has not yet connected these concepts to the categories, he has shown that a system for conceiving part-whole relations is presupposed in experience of complex particulars.
The remainder of this passage links pure concepts to the experience of objectivity and the necessity of self-consciousness. Kant's presentation is so badly organized, however, that it is not easy to see the connections between these ideas. From A103 to A111 he appears to make this argument:

1.Consciousness of conceptual unity presupposes a unitary consciousness. (A103-104)
2.The notion of an object of representation includes the idea of a necessary unity. (A104-6; A108-9).
3.Consciousness of objective unity requires a transcendental self consciousness (as opposed to an empirical self-consciousness).
4.A transcendental self-consciousness is consciousness of unity of synthesis by means of pure concepts. (A107-8)
5.Thus the pure concepts are presupposed in all objective awareness. (A109-11).

One can see from this summary why the A edition deduction is deemed a failure. Nevertheless, let us examine the main points, to prepare for the B edition proof.
At A103-4 Kant connects the unity thought through concepts with a unitary consciousness. WE saw that in counting, the concept of the number represents th whole resulting from a successive addition of units. Like the concept of number, all concepts represent the unity of a manifold, insofar as they are ways of thinking apart,-whole relations. Now Kant argues that consciousness of conceptual unity presupposes a unitary consciousness. To end up with a single complex representation, the manifold being unified must be united in a single consciousness. William James revisited this point in the nineteenth century by arguing that giving each of twelve persons one word of a twelve-word sentence does not result in any consciousness of the entire sentence. Despite its necessity, however, Kant says we may not always be aware of this unity of consciousness:
This consciousness may often only be weak, so that we connect it with the generation of the representation only in effect, but not in the act itself, i.e., immediately; but regardless of these differences one consciousness must always be found, even if it lacks conspicuous clarity, and without that concepts, and with them cognition of objects, would be entirely impossible. (A103)
Although it is not apparent, Kant is getting at more than the point that “it takes one to know one,” as Allison puts it. For from A107 on, Kant wants to connect concepts not just to numerically identical consciousness, but to awareness of the identity of consciousness, that is, identical self-consiousness.