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Kant and the Subjectivity of Nature:
An examination of some aspects of
Strawson’s attack on transcendental idealism
Contents
Introduction
Strawson's Critique
Kant as Phenomenalist
Kant as Noumenalist
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
The purpose of this
dissertation is to critically assess some aspects of P.F. Strawson's attack on
transcendental idealism as it occurs in his commentary on Kant's 'Critique of
Pure Reason', 'The Bounds of Sense'.
The general question at issue is whether or not one need accept
Strawson's dismissive attitude and settle for the 'austere' reconstruction of
Kant's text (or rather parts of that text) that he offers. Thus, what follows is a response to a
position which Strawson summarizes in his introductory chapter :
The doctrines of transcendental idealism,
and the associated picture of the receiving and ordering apparatus of the mind
producing Nature as we know it out of the unknowable reality of things as they
are in themselves, are undoubtedly the chief obstacles to a sympathetic
understanding of the Critique. (p.22)
The reason for such an indirect approach to Kant's text is
primarily the importance and influence of Strawson's work which stands as an
unavoidable hurdle for anyone wishing to offer a sympathetic reading of
transcendental idealism. If evidence
were needed for this, then it could be gathered by simply making a survey of
how many books and articles begin with a quote from Strawson's work or at least
state their position as regards that work in their opening pages (e.g. P.
Kitcher, H.E. Allison, T.E. Wilkerson, K. Davies, R.C.S. Walker....).
Strawson's work is best
understood as a recent and especially eloquent product of a particular brand of
Kantian scholarship, one whose position as orthodoxy disguises its radical
nature (as P.Kitcher notes, p.3).
Whilst no attempt will be made here to fully discuss the numerous
divergent strands of Kantian criticism, two distinct traditions will be briefly
considered in order to raise certain questions of interpretation which cannot
be fully treated within the body of this dissertation and also to place
Strawson's work within its context. The
first approach, to which Strawson most decidedly does not belong, may be
roughly characterized as that which consists in the interpretation and
development of Kantian doctrines within the continental (especially German)
speculative philosophical tradition running from immediate successors to Kant
who disputed over his legacy (Hegel, Schopenhauer, etc.) through to the recent
resurgence of interest in Kant amongst postmodernist thinkers. One interesting question of interpretation
which arises out of any consideration of this tradition is the extent to which
it is possible to examine the doctrines of the first Critique out of the
context of the critical philosophy as a whole.
Thus, for instance, of such matters R.C. Solomon writes, "The third
Critique, 'The Critique of Judgement', has been considered the least consequential
of the three, and is often neglected in English Kantian scholarship; but this
is certainly not true on the continent, where Kant's influence was based at
least as much on this work as upon the other two" (p.27). An extreme example of such unfamiliar
emphasis is the above mentioned postmodernist interest in Kant. This has taken the form, in some cases, of
such weight being given to the third Critique and especially to the doctrines
concerning the Sublime that the whole of the critical philosophy is seen, as it
were, through a fantastically distorting lens whereby Kant is seen to radically
undermine the epistemological and moral conclusions of the earlier critical
works, a far cry from the view of Kant as Enlightenment champion of reason;
rather Kant as Romantic irrationalist.
An example of the
neglectful tendency noted by Solomon amongst English Language Kantians is to be
found in Kitcher's 'Kant's Transcendental Psychology'. She complains that Strawson's knife-wielding
approach leaves us little to read, making a case for a sympathetic reading of
the doctrines of transcendental psychology on the grounds that it would allow a
much clearer understanding of key parts of the first Critique. The closing sentence of her book reads,
"The great book is more rewarding - and makes much better sense - when it
is read intact" (p.230). It is
surely fair to ask whether or not it is also the case that "the great
book" would be even more rewarding and make even better (if radically
different) sense if it were to be read in the context of a system wherein it
serves a purpose which is arguably preliminary. A particularly interesting line of post-Kantian development is
that via Hegel into objective idealism which raises questions concerning Kant's
neglect of the influence of society on conceptual frameworks (raising the
spectre of cultural relativism as against his universalizing pretensions) and
the connected accusation of over-emphasising the individual. These questions comprise, in a sense, the
other side to the coin of Strawson's complaint of Kant's "transcendental
subjectivism" (p.22).
These issues cannot be
dealt with further here in that they fall well outside the scope of the
questions under consideration. They are
raised in order to illustrate that one may question Strawson's approach (and
indeed the approach of much English language Kantian scholarship, whether for
or against transcendental idealism) from a position very different from that
which is adopted here.
The other interpretative
approach to be considered here might loosely be called the logical strand and
it is here that Strawson belongs, with those who reject the speculative
tradition and also that which they find in Kant that strikes them as metaphysical
or psychological. It is not suprising
that such an approach should predominate in Britain (though not only here)
where, it might be held, the afterglow of Logical Positivism lingers on, beyond
redemption, yet still exerting an influence.
Indeed Ayer in 'Language, Truth and Logic', the key text of British
Logical Positivism, bemoans the fact that Kant "made the impossibility of
a transcendent metaphysic not, as we do, a matter of logic, but a matter of
fact" (p.46f.). It is also
interesting to note that, when shaking their heads over Kant's failings, both
Strawson and Ayer refer to the Wittgensteinian point that "in order to be
able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to be able to find both sides
of the limit thinkable" (TLP, preface, p.3; cf.Strawson, p.44 and Ayer,
p.47). However, as we shall see, an
interpretation of Wittgenstein's talk of 'limits' is possible which sheds an
interesting and not unsympathetic light on certain aspects of transcendental idealism. A further positivistic connection, which
should be mentioned here as it cannot be dealt with more fully, concerns the
fact that Strawson ascribes a "principle of significance" to Kant
that bears a striking resemblance to the verification principle. The point which must be made here is that
such an ascription is highly questionable given Kant's views on the statements
with which practical reason is concerned (see p.19f.).
Walker acknowledges the
importance of Strawson, noting that he "can be taken as the representative
of a long tradition of Kantian criticism", a tradition which
"dispenses with the contrast between the transcendental ideality of the
world we know and the reality of things as they are in themselves" (p.vii
f.). It is beyond the scope of this
dissertation to consider in detail Strawson's positive views regarding Kant's
work as we are concerned specifically with certain of his negative theses
treating of transcendental idealism.
However, it is important to make the point that his positive views are
not universally accepted either. It is
not the case that his critics believe him to be correct on all issues but
transcendental idealism; it is held, rather, that he has, in placing so much
emphasis on the transcendental deduction and transcendental arguments as a
means to "search for a minimal objective framework in our experience"
(Ameriks, p.6), lost or given up most of the philosophical advantages to be
gained from the study of Kant's text.
Thus, Walker (perhaps the most extreme proponent of this view) believes
that the interpretative tradition represented by Strawson,
has been misguided in its underestimate of
transcendental idealism and equally misguided in its overestimate of what can
be achieved without it. Transcendental idealism will not solve every problem,
and is not without difficulties of its own, but the alternative of relying on
transcendental arguments turns out to be much more disappointing than its
proponents expect.... (p.viii)
Walker's argument is that whilst Strawson believes that
transcendental arguments can establish conclusions about what the world must be
like and that Kant's assigning of the limiting features of experience to our
"cognitive constitution" (Strawson, p.15) constitutes an
"unwarranted extra step" (Walker,p.122), it is in fact Strawson himself
who is guilty of having taken such a step.
For Walker, "To say we must apply the concept of an object in our
experience is to say we must think there are objects; but it would take a
further move to show that there actually are" (p.122). This vexed question of the status of
transcendental arguments also leads Ameriks to conclude that "although
this approach has been very popular, it can no longer be said to be
intrinsically promising" and furthermore that "its connection with
Kant's own procedure in the Critique is quite questionable" (p.6).
Allison echoes Walker's
assessment of the importance of Strawson, seeing 'The Bounds of Sense' as a
major factor in the continued acceptance of what he terms the "standard
picture" (p.3). For Allison, this
view involves holding that :
Kant's transcendental idealism is a
metaphysical theory that affirms the unknowability of the "real"
(things in themselves) and relegates knowledge to the purely subjective realm
of representations (appearances). It
thus combines a phenomenalistic account of what is actually experienced by the
mind, and therefore knowable, with the postulation of an additional set of
entities which, in terms of the very theory, are unknowable. (p.3f.)
This "standard picture" presented by Allison is indeed
very close to the interpretation put forward by Strawson as will be seen in
what follows. This type of two-pronged
attack on transcendental idealism, which will be characterized as charges of
'phenomenalism' and 'noumenalism' respectively, comprise the heart of
Strawson's objections. These two
elements will be considered in turn after a brief overview of Strawson's
approach to the Critique as a whole.
Particular attention will be given to the charge of noumenalism,
especially as it bears on the self in itself, in line with the theme of
"sujectivity". Other aspects
of Strawson's attack will be treated as secondary and only the briefest outline
of a response will be attempted.
Strawson's Critique
T.E. Wilkerson, in his
book which often seems to to be more of a sympathetic exposition of Strawson's
views than it is an independent commentary on Kant's work writes:
[Kant] expresses his problem in the form ,
How are synthetic a priori judgements possible ? [....] But I am going to
suggest a slightly different way of approaching the 'Critique of Pure Reason'
which is much clearer and much more helpful when one is actually confronted
with the text. It is the approach
originally developed with considerable philosophical profit in P.F. Strawson's
'Bounds of Sense'. I am going to
suppose that instead of asking , How are synthetic a priori propositions
possible ?, Kant is really asking, What are the necessary conditions of a
possible experience ? (p.13)
A key element in the reasoning behind such a re-working of Kant's
enterprise is that the new formulation supposedly avoids the need to invoke the
active transcendental self (as an explanation of how such knowledge is
possible) and indeed the whole edifice of transcendental idealism.
Strawson wishes to divide
the Critique into its "two faces" because he holds transcendental
idealism to be fundamentally incoherent.
He has "tried to show how certain great parts of the structure can
be held apart from each other, while showing also how within the system itself,
they are conceived of as related" (p.11).
The reasons for such a "holding apart" are as follows :
In two ways [...Kant...] draws the bounds
of sense, and in a third traverses them.
He argues, on the one hand, that a certain minimum structure is essential
to any conception of experience which we can make truly intelligible to
ourselves; on the other, that the attempt to extend beyond the limits of
experience the use of structural concepts, or of any other concepts, leads only
to claims empty of meaning [....] But Kant's arguments for these limiting
conclusions are developed within the framework of a set of doctrines which
themselves appear to violate his own critical principles. He seeks to draw the bounds of sense from a
point outside them, a point which, if they are rightly drawn, cannot exist.
(p.11f.)
For Strawson, Kant's
drawing of the bounds of sense or investigation of the limits of the
conceivable contains much that is of value.
Those parts of the text which form the essential elements of this
investigation provide a powerful tool for establishing answers to philosophical
problems once a certain amount of reconstructive work is applied to the
text. The scepticism of radical
empiricism is challenged and much of the unbridled metaphysical speculation of
the rationalists is ruled out. However
when it comes to Kant's attempts to "investigate the pure understanding
itself, its possibility and the cognitive faculties upon which it rests",
that is, his enquiry in its "subjective aspect" (Axvi), Strawson's
patience quickly runs out. He thinks
that this subjective enquiry, which results in transcendental idealism with its
flawed doctrines of phenomena and noumena leading to the idea of "the
ultimate subjectivity of the natural world" (p.41), is based on a
"misleading" or "strained" analogy. Kant is held to have ignored the differences
between his objective investigation (the key aspect of which is the
transcendental deduction) which is philosophical and the subjective (which is
properly a matter for empirical science) because he was misled by the analogy
he drew between the two. For Strawson
this led to Kant's key mistake, i.e.; "Wherever he found limiting or
necessary general features of experience, he declared their source to lie in
our own cognitive constitution" (p.15).
Strawson holds that rather than explaining the possibility of knowledge,
such doctrines mask the insights to be found in Kant's work. Thus to "hold apart" the two sides
of the Critique is to render Kant a service.
The task then is to
assess the strength of Strawson's attack on those doctrines which he wished to
strip away from the uncontaminated results of transcendental arguments. One must first consider how Strawson
characterizes the doctrines of transcendental idealism and then whether or not
his interpretations are fair to the text or the only possible reading. On some points it will be argued that there
are alternative interpretations available which should be cosidered as of least
equal validity whereas on other points an attempt will be made to show that his
objections do not necessarily constitute a fatal blow against transcendental
idealism.
H.E. Matthews summarizes
Strawson's position, claiming that, "for Strawson transcendental idealism
equals phenomenalism plus noumenalism" (p.133), echoing Allison's
charaterization of the "standard picture". Whilst Strawson does not explicitly put it in these terms, his
eight-fold division of the doctrines (pp.236-9) would seem to support such a
characterization. Elsewhere he talks of
"mixed idealism" (p.197) and "the phenomenalistic idealism which
the transcendental variety seems to include" (p.257). Also the Strawson-influenced Wilkerson
argues that transcendental idealism consists of "two quite distinct
doctrines, phenomenalism and noumenalism" (p.181f.). Thus we are faced with the questions, 'Is
Kant a phenomenalist ?' and 'is he a noumenalist ?' It is proposed to deal with these two key questions in turn in
the belief that, as they address that which constitutes the essence of his
attack, any conclusion different from Strawson's own cannot but call into
question the power of that assault.
Kant as Phenomenalist
Firstly then the question
of Kant as phenomenalist. As Strawson notes,
Kant wished to make a sharp distinction between transcendental idealism and
other forms of idealism. However, he
argues, "when we see how Kant supports this claim [....] we must view it
with scepticism" (p.21) for "Kant as transcendental idealist, is
closer to Berkeley than he acknowledges" (p.22). Such claims are not new; as M.R. Ayers notes, "Ever since
its first publication critics of Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' have been
struck by certain strong formal resemblances between transcendental idealism
and Berkeley's immaterialism" (p.51).
Indeed such claims were so widely made on the appearance of the first
edition that the second edition contained new material specifically written to
remove the grounds for such a comparison.
An objection can be raised against all such comparisons, for as G. Bird
argues, "There is, of course, here a serious problem of interpretation
[....] for just as Kant's views are not entirely determinate, independent of
their interpretation, so the same is notoriously true of Berkeley as well. But to suggest that within the range of
views ascribable to Berkeley some are close to views within the range
ascribable to Kant is to say virtually nothing" (p.84, footnote 18). However, it is no doubt a little unfair to
complain that Strawson fails to give a full interpretation of Berkeley's views
in a book on Kant. Bird's point does
however show that Strawson's frequent use of this comparison as a polemical
weapon in his struggle to label Kant as a phenomenalist is scarcely enlightening. Thus in the following discussion of Kant as
phenomenalist no attempt will be made to compare the text of the Critique to
the work of Berkeley.
Strawson claims to find
much support in Kant's text for his assertion that transcendental idealism is
in part made up of "a relatively familiar kind of phenomenalistic
idealism" (p.240). He writes:
In the assertions of the Aesthetic, in the
arguments of the Deduction and the Analogies, in the solutions to the problems
offered in the Dialectic, we find repeatedly the refrain that bodies in space,
being appearances only, have no existence distinct from our representations or
perceptions, that they are but a species of the latter, that apart from our
perceptions, they are nothing at all. (p.257)
The passages wherein Strawson finds "strikingly bold
affirmations" (p.258) of his thesis is in the discussion of the Fourth
Paralogism. The point of Kant's
argument here is to deny the Cartesian thesis that we must infer the existence
of the external world. Kant is unhappy
with such a claim because "the inference from a given effect to a
determinate cause is always uncertain, since the effect may be due to more than
one cause" (A368). Kant believes
that transcendental idealism "removes all difficulty in the way of accepting
the existence of matter on the unaided testimony of our mere
self-consciousness" (A370). The
difficulty is removed by denying the need for inference. The only difference between the
representation of self as thinking subject (which Descartes accepts) and
representations which "mark extended beings" (A371) is that the
former belong only to inner sense whereas the latter also belong to outer
sense. Both are immediate objects of
perception thus there is no need for inference at all. As Kant writes, "in both cases alike
the objects are nothing but representations, the immediate perception
(consciousness) of which is at the same time a sufficient proof of their
reality" (A371). Scepticism
regarding the external world is countered because, "these external things,
namely matter, are in all their configurations and alterations, nothing but
mere appearances, that is, representations in us" (A371-2).
It cannot be denied that
such passages as this lend themselves to Strawson's accusation of phenomenalism
as Allison (p.31) and Matthews (p.135), both defenders of transcendental
idealism, admit. However, it is not the
case that this is the only possible interpretation of such talk. As is so often the case, an examination of
other parts of Kant's text can lead to a very different picture to that which
is gleaned from reading talk of "in us" out of its wider
context. Allison suggests that a
non-phenomenalist reading of Kant's position is the result of an examination of
his remarks concerning the existence of unperceived entities and events
(pp.31-34). Citing the example of
Kant's consideration of the possibility of the moon being inhabited
(A493-4/B522-3), he notes that Kant "like both Berkeley and the contemporary
phenomenalist, translates first-order statements about unperceived entities or
events into second-order statements about the possible perceptions
thereof" (p.32). However, for
Allison, "this superficial resemblance really masks the distinctive feature
of the Kantian analysis : the role given to a priori laws or principles"
(ibid.).
Allison further
elucidates his point by means of a consideration of Kant's analysis of
'actuality'. Again he admits that the
definition of the 'actual' as "that which is bound up with the material
conditions of experience, that is, with sensation" (A218/B266), seemingly
invites a phenomenalistic reading.
However, Kant continues :
The postulate bearing on the knowledge of
things as 'actual' does not, indeed, demand immediate perception (and,
therefore, sensation of which we are conscious) of the object whose existence
is to be known. What we do, however,
require is the connection of the object with some actual perception, in
accordance with the analogies of experience, which define all real connection
in an experience in general. (A225/B272)
As Allison notes, the point of this passage is that Kant does hold
that an 'actual' event or entity must be an object of possible perception but
this is not a criterion of the 'actual' but rather a consequence of the
necessary application of the "analogies of experience" whereas in
phenomenalism the possibility is itself the criterion for 'actuality'. For Kant, "the appeal to perception or
sensation here functions merely as the point of departure, which gives
empirical content to the claim of actuality.
The claim itself is not about any "subjective
experiences"" (Allison, p.33).
Whereas Allison produces
arguments specifically challenging the charge of phenomenalism, Matthews uses
what is essentially the same approach to both strands of Strawson's attack,
i.e. both phenomenalism and noumenalism.
R.B. Pippin notes that the type of approach adopted by Matthews is often
called the "two aspect" view and characterizes it as a "project
[which] attempts to interpret the distinction between appearances and things in
themselves as a distinction between two ways of considering objects -
"as" they appear, subject to human conditions for the possibility of
experience, and "as" they are in themselves, considered hypothetically
apart from these conditions - and so not between two types of objects"
(p.366). Allison also holds a version
of this view, to be considered below in the section on noumenalism. As Matthews presents this view, the point is
that Kant is not making an ontological point but rather "an
epistemological point about the limits of human knowledge" (p.136).
According to Matthews,
such an understanding of what Kant is doing leads to an interpretation of talk
of "representations" being "in us" which is radically
different to the phenomenalism / noumenalism hybrid which Strawson reads into
such passages. In support of his
"two aspect" view, Matthews, in his discussion of Kant's views on the
nature of appearances, points to the following passage from the Transcendental
Aesthetic :
It is, therefore, solely from the human
standpoint that we can speak of space, of extended things, etc. If we depart from the subjective condition
under which we alone can have outer intuition, namely, liability to be affected
by objects, the representations of space stand for nothing whatsoever. This predicate can be ascribed to things
only in so far as they appear to us, that is, only to objects of sensibility.
(A26/B42)
In this passage the reference to "the human standpoint"
and being "affected by objects" does indeed seem to back a "two
aspect" approach. Objects are not
denied, nor are two 'sets' of objects or two worlds posited. Rather, Kant is holding that in order for us
to have knowledge (human experience) the form must be applied by us to the matter
which is in some sense 'given'.
This "two
aspect" approach will be examined in more detail in connection with
noumena. It is important at this point
to understand why Strawson holds that "Kant fails to satisfy the
conditions for a significant application of the contrast between things as they
really are and things as they appear" (p.254) and by what
"distortions and perversions" (p.249) such a failure arises. Strawson argues that for any such
distinction to be significantly drawn two concepts are essential, identity of
reference and the notion of the corrected view (p.250). The idea of a contrast between appearance
and reality as two standpoints necessarily implies the same 'thing' is being
referred to and that the 'real' is a corrected view of what 'appears' to be the
case. Whilst Strawson holds that there
is "no logical compulsion" to make a distinction at all between
appearance and reality, he points to philosophers such as Locke and Russell who
have taken this step without becoming unintelligible. On a view such as theirs, our perceptions are 'appearances'
whilst the explanation of the cause of such phenomena can be called the
'reality'. This is intelligible because
"Things as they really are, are not removed from the spatio-temporal
framework of reference. They are simply
things as science speaks of them rather than as we perceive them. The corrected view is the view of science;
it is a different view, but it is a view of the same things as our ordinary
uncorrected view is a view of" (p.252).
It is with regard to
removal from the "spatio-temporal framework" that Strawson finds the
difference between Kant and the "scientifically minded
philosopher". Whilst the latter
maintains the connection to sensible experience, albeit in a less direct form,
thus allowing knowledge of things as they really are (in terms of scientific
description rather than perceptual acquaintance), "Kant denies the
possibility of any empirical knowledge at all of those things, as they are in
themselves" (p.40). Strawson's
complaint here is that by assigning even space and time to our cognitive
constitution, Kant is not able to give any intelligible meaning to the idea of
things in themselves "affecting" this constitution. On Kant's account the only 'corrected' view is
"non-sensible intuition" the possibility of which we are unable to
comprehend.
Matthews' response to the
above is to claim that Kant is not using "appearances" in the sense
that it is used by those philosophers
to whom Strawson compares him, in that it refers to all human experience and
thus "one can hardly object [....] that he cannot give it significance in
the way that one can give significance to the word as normally used"
(p.146). This response, of itself, does
not of course fully resolve the problems concerning the cognitive
constitution. Any attempt at such a
resolution necessitates a full consideration of those aspects of transcendental
idealism which have been dubbed 'noumenalism'.
As can be seen in the discussion thus far, it is difficult, if not
impossible to maintain a rigid distinction between the two charges levelled by
Strawson. Strawson seems to admit as
much. He concedes that the charge of
phenomenalism does not in itself prove fatal, the main thrust of his attack
being aimed at the incoherence of the notion of the thing in itself, the self
in itself, their relation and how they produce phenomena. He writes thus :
The fact that within the framework of the
theory of transcendental idealism a form of reconciliation is possible between
the thesis that we are aware of bodies in space as objects distinct from our
perceptions and the thesis that bodies in space have no existence apart from
our perceptions has no power to restore to the theory of transcendental
idealism the coherence and intelligibility it [can be...] shown to lack [on
other grounds]. (p.260)
Kant as Noumenalist
We must now consider the
charge of noumenalism that Strawson raises against Kant. For Strawson, noumena comprises the real world
in what he sees as Kant's two-world view.
All reference to the "supersensible" or "things as they
are in themselves" within the context of transcendental idealism involves
the positing of a "sphere of supersensible reality, of things, neither
spatial nor temporal, as they are in themselves" (p.236). It is in this sphere that the phenomenal
world is created by means of the quasi-causal interaction of things in
themselves and the self in itself or the passive and active elements of this
realm. It is in this two-world view
which Strawson recognizes at the heart of transcendental idealism that the
radical incoherence of the system is best exemplified. As Allison notes, "of all the
criticisms that have been raised against Kant's philosophy, the most persistent
is that he has no right to affirm the existence of things in themselves,
noumena, or a transcendental object, much less to talk about such things as
somehow "affecting" the mind" (p.237). Such indeed is Strawson's position. How can Kant who has accomplished so much against the ungrounded
metaphysical speculation of his rationalist predecessors fall so far foul of
his own critical principles as to hold that "reality is supersensible and
that we can have no knowledge of it" (p.38).
But a question must be
raised as to whether Strawson is in fact correct in claiming that Kant posits
the existence of a supersensible realm which is ontologically distinct from the
world of appearances thus engendering huge problems concerning interaction as
well as opening himself to the obvious retort that if knowledge requires both
concepts and intuitions then how could we know anything about such a realm,
even that it exists ?
This question will be
examined as it relates to the issue of the self in itself, or the active self
of transcendental idealism, in line with the theme of
"subjectivity". The key part
of Strawson's text to be considered here is the section, 'The Thing-In-Itself
and Appearances in Inner Sense' (pp.247-9).
As K. Ameriks notes, these aspects of Kant's work are of particular
interest (and have encountered much resistance),
for (as Kant himself noted) although there
are many who would grant that the world may be really quite other than we think
of it as being, the reason for granting this is often quite simply the idea
that, in contrast, one's own self must be what it appears to be. At the very least, Kant forces us to see
that this resistance rests on a questionable doctrine, and that self-knowledge
may well be parasitic on, and so suffer the same fate as, knowledge of the
world at large. (p.9)
Ameriks, at least in
part, attributes Kant's moves in this direction to a commitment to the
traditional rationalist search for a stable self underlying the transient
empirical one and a desire to recast this commitment "into a respectable
form" (p.9). Strawson would agree
with Ameriks to the extent that Kant is influenced by his rationalist
predecessors but rather than finding anything even faintly respectable in
Kant's doctrines, finds rather the most "incautious" statements of
noumenalism arising just at those points where Kant is most concerned with
morality and freedom and thus the self.
Despite attempts to avoid speaking of noumena as objects elsewhere, it
is in the context of such issues that he shows his noumenalist hand, as it
were, and provides us with the most "decisive reasons for thinking that
[...weaker readings of the doctrines of transcendental idealism...] would
altogether fail to answer to Kant's intentions" (p.22). Strawson holds that when writing on the self
Kant is concerned "to curb the pretensions of sensibility to be
co-extensive with the real [...because...] the proof of our necessary ignorance
of the supersensible safeguards the interests of morality and religion by securing
the supersensible realm from our scepticism as well as from our knowledge"
(p.22). However whilst the
reconciliation of Newton and God or the claim to have denied knowledge "in
order to make room for faith" (Bxxx) may have been one of Kant's proudest
claims, he does not (as Strawson notes, p.241) actually use such considerations
as a premise from which to argue for the doctrines of transcendental
idealism. It is rather that they lead
him on to his most glaring "lapses" (as Wilkerson characterizes them,
p.191).
These "lapses"
occur because, Strawson holds, "it is manifestly, of importance to him to
ensure that there is a point of connexion, in the way of identity, between the
supersensible world and the world of human beings" (p.247). Without such a connexion it would be of no
relevance to us that there existed a supersensible realm wherein freedom and
thus the possibility of morality held sway.
Furthermore without this link between the self in itself as seat of the
forms of both sensibility and understanding and our empirical selves "it
would be impossible to assemble, let alone to work, that crude model of imposed
necessities available [....] to our non-empirical knowledge" (p.247). Strawson identifies Kant's answer to the
puzzle of the connexion in the following passage from the Antinomies :
Man, however, who knows all the rest of
nature through the senses, knows himself also through pure apperception; and
this, indeed, in acts and inner determinations which he cannot regard as
impressions of the senses. He is thus
to himself, on the one hand phenomenon, and on the other hand, in respect of
certain faculties which cannot be ascribed to sensibility, a purely
intelligible object. We entitle these
faculties understanding and reason. (A546-7/B574-5)
Strawson interprets this
passage as asserting that the connexion is made between the individual as
natural being and as supersensible being by means of his/her consciousness of
the "possession and exercise of the power of thought, of the faculties of
understanding and reason" (p.248).
He objects to such an attempt at forging the connexion on the grounds
that, on Kantian principles, any such experience must occur in time and be an
experience of a definite, temporal conscious process. Hence, for Strawson, there can be no way in which this supposed
clarification of the connexion can concern anything which is supersensible,
i.e. a self in itself outside of a temporal framework; thus it cannot do the
work necessary for making the link so vital to Kant's enterprise. Furthermore, "Kant faces these
difficulties again and again in more cautious passages in the Aesthetic, in the
Deduction, in the Paralogisms." (p.248).
It is worth considering
some of these other "more cautious passages", for reasons which will
become apparent. Unfortunately,
Strawson, at this key point in his attack on the notion of a transcendental
self, neglects to give precise references; this being perhaps symptomatic of
his general disdain for such matters and a feeling that he has already sufficiently
undermined the doctrine's claim to intelligibility in his comments on the
passage quoted above. An attempt has
been made to be fair to Strawson in the selection of the following quotes, all
of which, initially at least, appear to lend support to his views, whilst they
may not be, in every case, the precise passage he intended (the quote from B157
is specifically referenced by Strawson).
Thus in the Aesthetic we find :
Everything that is represented through a
sense is so far always appearance, and consequently we must either refuse to
admit that there is an inner sense, or we must recognise that the subject,
which is the object of the sense, can be represented through it only as
appearance, not as that subject would judge of itself if its intuition were
self-activity only, that is, were intellectual. (B68)
In the Deduction we have :
"...in the transcendental synthesis
of the manifold of representations in general, and therefore in the synthetic
original unity of apperception, I am conscious of myself, not as I appear to
myself, nor as I am in myself, but only that I am. This representation is a thought, not an intuition." (B157).
Also :
I have no knowledge of myself as I am but
merely as I appear to myself. The
consciousness of self is thus very far from being a knowledge of the self...
(B158)
Finally, in the Paralogisms, we find :
[for]...the thinking self [....] to know
itself as noumenon [....] is impossible, since the empirical intuition is
sensible and yields only data of appearances, which furnish nothing to the
object of pure consciousness for the knowledge of its separate existence, but
can serve only for the obtaining of experience. (B430)
This latter is, however, then seemingly contradicted by the
following :
And we should also become aware that in
the consciousness of our existence there is contained a something a priori,
which can serve to determine our existence [....] as being related, in respect
of a certain inner faculty, to a non-sensible intelligible world. (B431-2)
According to Strawson,
none of these passages make the "identity which has to be explained - the
identity of the empirically self-conscious subject and the real or
supersensible subject - [....] a whit more intelligible." (p.248f.). Any attempt to make good the connexion that
is needed must traverse "the limits of intelligibility" (p.249) or
the "bounds of sense" for, as the self-consciousness in question must
be both experience of and experience for a temporal self, all reference to a
self as it (supersensibly) is in itself "drops out as superfluous and
unjustified" (ibid.). Thus, he
concludes, "What has the non-history of the transcendental subject to do
with us ?" (ibid.).
Furthermore, the
reference to "synthesis" at B157 cannot but cloud the issue further on
a Strawsonian account. The doctrine of
synthesis is amongst the worst excesses of the subjective aspect of Kant's
enquiry or, in that it "rests firmly on the distinction of faculties"
(p.97), represents the greatest extravagence of his psychological idiom so
often conflated with the logical investigations of the Critique. The doctrine of synthesis comprises the
details of the workings of the self in itself, the underlying mechanism of the
transcendental unity of apperception.
As such it represents Kant squaring up to the question laid out in the
preface at Axvii - "how is the faculty of thought itself possible ?"
and lies at the heart of his Copernican revolution, putting the flesh on the
bones of the supposition that "objects must conform to our knowledge"
(Bxvi). For Strawson, Kant's
"transcendental subjectivism, the theory of the mind making nature"
(p.22) can only become more incoherent as detail is added to the
"disastrous model" (p.21).
Given his allegation of unintelligibility against the very notion of a
self in itself, it is unsuprising that he should dismiss the detail as
"mysterious bits of non-temporal machinery" (Matthews'
characterization of Strawson's position, p.146), the explication of which is to
be by-passed because "...it is useless to puzzle over the status of these
propositions..." (p.97).
It is at this point,
however, that we must question Strawson's interpretation of the above passages
(especially that from the Antinomies), which he believes to constitute a
damning indictment of Kant's notion of a self in itself in that they show him
embroiled in a confusion and incoherence which put him in conflict with his own
critical principles. Initially, it
might be argued that one could put the matter even more strongly than Strawson
himself does. One might hold, for
example, that the "incautious" talk (in the Antinomies passage) of
man being to himself "a purely intelligible object" not only falls
into a contradiction as regards Kant's principle of significance (which,
however, it is not clear that Kant held, as was noted in the introduction) but
that it also actually contradicts his more "cautious" statements
which try to avoid talking of the noumenal self as an object. Thus, on this view, one could argue that the
other passages cited are not in fact more cautious versions of the same
position but are in fact entirely inconsistent with it (perhaps supporting the
'patchwork' theory, proposed by some critics, which sees such difficulties as
arising out of the fact that the Critique was put together from diverse
fragments composed at different times without sufficient editing). Thus the other passages cited above, taken
together, recognise the impossibility of intellectual intuition and the extract
from B158 in particular agrees with the anti-Cartesian conclusions of the
Paralogisms in a way that the "incautious" statement does not. This does not mean, however, that the
passages from the Aesthetic, Deduction and Paralogisms are without difficulties
of their own, the seeming contradiction between the two excerpts from the
Paralogisms being perhaps the most problematic. Thus, to summarize, on a Strawsonian reading of the Antinomies
passage, the inconsistency between the various statements and hence the
incoherence of each is greater even than Strawson holds to be the case.
But might not this very
inconsistency point to another possible conclusion - that Strawson's reading of
the "incautious" Antinomies passage is incorrect ? A line of interpretation that brings all the
above passages into closer agreement is indeed possible and it is one that
radically challenges the accusation of incoherence by questioning the basic
tenet of Strawson's case for Kant being a noumenalist, i.e. the two world
view. A clue to an altogether different
interpretation is to be found in the motivation for the "lapses"
which both Strawson and Wilkerson identify as lying behind the Antinomies
passage in particular and noumenalism as regards the self in general -
"the supposed interests of morality" (Strawson, p.248). The point here is that the very fact that
Kant is concerned at such points with morality means that he is not concerned
with knowledge claims at all but with presuppositions of practical reason. Kant would in fact agree that no connexion
could be made between the two worlds envisioned by Strawson and that we could
have no knowledge of a supersensible world; but he has no need to make the link
that Strawson holds to be so vital as he has not posited any such world.
Such passages as that
from the Antinomies can in fact be read from the perspective of the "two
aspect" view with interesting results.
Those passages where Kant does seemingly invoke a noumenal self can be
seen as a special case as regards the "two aspect" or
"standpoint" (cf. A26/B42, quoted above, p.11)view. As Matthews puts it,
We can draw a contrast between two
different human standpoints : the standpoint of experience and the standpoint
of action [....] This contrast is made by Kant in the form of a distinction
between the standpoints of theoretical and practical reason. (p.138)
Theoretical reason is concerned with statements which make
knowledge claims whereas practical reason is concerned with "statements
which express presuppositions of our activity as desiring or willing
beings" (ibid.). For Matthews,
these latter statements are to be seen thus :
[They] have content, [but] not in the
sense that they embody knowledge about objects [...and furthermore] the system
of these presuppositions may be called a 'supersensible world' or an 'intelligible
world', not in the sense that it consists of objects which can only be known
about by non-sensory or intellectual intuition, but in the sense that its
'objects' are not objects of knowledge at all, but 'objectively real'
presuppositions of activity. (p.139)
It is interesting to
consider how the passages cited at p.16f. might be read in the light of this
distinction made by Matthews. First the
passage from the Antinomies. Backed by
the "standpoint" view we are able to read the reference to "a purely
intelligible object" as being a reference to that which is posited when
seeking to understand oneself as an active being; it is not a claim to know a
noumenal self but rather consists in an unpacking of a necessary presupposition
of activity. Furthermore, one can find
backing for applying the "standpoint" view to this passage in other
parts Kant's text for, in a passage following closely on the one in question
(at A550/B578), he quite clearly himself invokes the distinction between "speculative
reason" and "reason in its practical bearing".
Thus we seem to be able
to bring this most "incautious" statement into line with those from
the Aesthetic and the Deduction which clearly deny any direct intuition of a
noumenal self. However, one might still
ask of the Deduction passage B157 (specifically cited by Strawson as
problematic), what does it mean to say that "this representation is a
thought" ? Does this not still
constitute a claim to knowledge ? To
answer this objection, one might consider an interpretation of the
"noumenal self" put forward by Allison. He begins by noting that "the characterization of the
subject of apperception as a "transcendental subject = x" [A346/B404]
is not intended to assign the act of thinking to some inaccessible noumenal
entity, which is nonetheless to be identified with one's "real"
self" (p.290). Such a
characterization, argues Allison, is made solely to undermine the pretensions
of rational psychology to any more informative answer to the question of the
identity of the I which thinks. Armed
with this point made by Allison we can interpret "I am conscious of myself
[....] only that I am. This
representation is a thought...." (B157) as meaning that "reflection
yields only the bare thought of a subject that must be presupposed as a
condition of thinking" (Allison, p.290).
Thus here again we come
up against the concept of a "presupposition". But what does it mean in this context, as we
are obviously not here concerned with morality and thus the distinction between
theoretical and practical reason ?
Allison makes this clear by drawing an interesting parallel with
Wittgenstein's Tractatus. For
Wittgenstein, "The subject does not belong to the world : rather, it is a
limit of the world" (TLP 5.632) and again, "The philosophical self is
not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with which
psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world -
not a part of it" (TLP 5.641).
Similarly, Kant holds that "I cannot know as an object that which I
must presuppose in order to know any object" (A402) and further that
"a transcendental subject [....] is known only through the thoughts which
are its predicates, and of it, apart from them, we cannot have any concept
whatsoever, but can only revolve in a perpetual circle, since any judgement
upon it has always already made use of its representation"
(A346/B404). Thus one cannot know the
self in itself and, as these latter quotes make plain, Kant was quite clear
that this was impossible, for he realised of the transcendental subject that it
(as Allison puts it) "must be thought of as already on the scene, doing
the conceptualizing" (p.292).
Thus, contra Strawson, this subject is not, and cannot be, an object but
is rather a limit, a necessarily presupposed ground to the very possibility of
representation.
Finally, to deal with the
seeming contradiction between the two passages cited from the Paralogisms (from
B430-2, see p.17) we need only return to the theoretical / practical distinction
made by Matthews and link it to Allison's comments regarding Kant's attack on
the pretensions of rational psychology.
Bearing these lessons in mind, a construction most unlike Strawson's can
be put on the latter passage's reference to "being related [....] to a
non-sensible intelligible world" (B431).
As the passage immediately following the one cited makes plain, it is
again the rational psychologists that are being derided and the only sense in
which we might be conceived of as being "related" to any noumenal
realm is from the viewpoint of "the practical employment [of reason]"
(ibid.). A further criticism of
Strawson's position can be made by means of a consideration of the penultimate
sentence of this section (and the Paralogisms as a whole). Kant writes thus : "These observations
are designed merely to prevent a misunderstanding to which the doctrine of our
self-intuition, as appearance, is particularly liable" (B432). This warning could have been specifically
aimed at Strawson for, as Ameriks notes, "Strawson speaks as if for Kant
the noumenal subject is alone real, and what is phenomenal is simply
false" (p.283). But, he continues,
Kant was well aware of such objections and "clearly emphasises that by
saying the temporality of experience is wholly phenomenal ('only appearance'),
he doesn't mean to say that it only appears to be the case that we have
experience, or it only appears that this experience has a temporal nature
(B69)" (ibid.). It is thus again
made clear that it can be held on good grounds that Strawson is quite simply
wrong to hold that for Kant, "reality is supersensible" (Strawson,
p.38).
However, to return to the
main thrust of the defence of the Kantian transcendental self against
Strawson's charge of noumenalism that has been put forward here, i.e. the
"two aspect" view; we have seen how it performs this specific task
and must now give it a general characterization. Matthews' version of the "two aspect" view (though he
does not refer to it as such) consists in holding that Kant "in
distinguishing 'appearances' from 'things in themselves', [...] is contrasting,
not two types of thing, but two ways of considering the same things"
(p.137), a formulation that closely echoes Pippin's characterization of this
type of view. Matthews further holds
that on such a view one may clearly maintain that "Kant nowhere asserts
that there are noumena in [the positive] sense" (p.138), i.e. that he
posits a seperate realm of things in themselves. Laying great emphasis on Kant's talk of "the human
standpoint" (A26/B42), Matthews concludes that rather than claiming
knowledge of the supersensible (as Strawson claims), Kant is interested merely
in the concept of such a world in order to draw attention to the limits of our
knowledge - "The point of the Copernican revolution is to remind
philosophers that they are not Gods" (p.144).
Allison gives a much more
fully worked out version of the "two aspect" view which can only be
outlined here. The key concept in
Allison's approach is the "epistemic condition" which, he argues,
"allows us to make good sense of the transcendental distinction between
things as they appear and things as they are in themselves, and of Kant's
"Copernican" assumption that objects "conform to our knowledge""
(p.330). As E. Forster summarises
Allison's position, he makes a distinction between how the ideal / real duality
is applied at the empirical and at the transcendental level. In the former case ideal means subjective
and real means inter-subjective whereas "at the transcendental level, by
contrast, 'ideal' is said to refer to universal and necessary a priori
conditions of human knowledge, to what Allison terms "epistemic
conditions"" (p.734). At this
level something is ideal when considered via these conditions and real if considered
independently of them. As Allison
himself puts it :
the task of a transcendental justification
of the concept of the thing in itself (and its associated concepts [including
the self in itself]) is to explain the possibility and significance of considering
"as they are in themselves" the same objects which we can know only
as they appear; it is not, as is frequently assumed, to license the appeal to a
set of unknown entities distinct from appearances. (p.239)
Allison further argues that in talking of a thing as it appears or
as it is in itself, "the relevant terms function adverbially to
characterize how we consider things in transcendental reflection, not
substantively to characterize what it is that is being considered or reflected
upon" (p.241). Such then is the
"two aspect" view which we have seen applied to the notion of the
self in itself.
Conclusion
The conclusion which can
be drawn from the above is that we need not be as dismissive of transcendental
idealism as Strawson would have us be.
The main reason for this view is that his characterization of Kant's
position as amounting to a two-world view, composed of an incoherent hybrid of
phenomenalism and noumenalism is not the only possible interpretation and is
indeed highly questionable. The major
emphasis here has been on the self in itself as it occurs in transcendental
idealism and much attention has been given to the "two aspect"
interpretative approach which, as has hopefully been shown, can be applied to
such issues with some profit. The key
point which it is believed has been established herein is that the
transcendental self is by no means as unintelligible or incoherent a notion as
Strawson holds it to be. However, this
emphasis has of course meant that other aspects of transcendental idealism have
been ignored, both Strawson's objections and defences of such doctrines by a
number of critics. This being the case,
the above cannot be claimed to be a full or adequate defence against Strawson's
assault, although it does attempt to rock the major pillars of that structure.
Two key areas that it was
not possible to cover here in any depth are the question of things in
themselves or noumena in general (i.e. other than the self in itself) and the details
of transcendental psychology (the faculties, synthesis, etc.). Strawson's
assault on the former might again be seriously impacted by an application of
the "two aspect" view (as well as by a consideration of papers by L.
Chipman and J. Srzednicki) and the latter could be approached in terms of a
position laid out in P. Kitcher's book on the subject (although the position
therein is in a complex and not entirely sympathetic relation to the doctrines
of transcendental idealism).
Neither Strawson's
antagonism towards the kind of "weakened" (p.22) or
"anodyne" (p.38) interpretations he considers possible or Wilkerson's
defence of him against Matthews (p.185f.) constitute a strong case against the
"two aspect" approach because they do not seriously challenge the
view that such interpretations are not at least of equal validity as their
own. Thus, the conclusion drawn is that
we are by no means forced into following Strawson's 'austere' reading of the
Critique.
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1993