Use Your Imagination:

Evaluating the Role of Spontaneity

in the Possibility of Knowledge.

Jonah Bossewitch

PHI 304

Professor Beatrice Longuenesse

November 23, 1994

"To solve any [cognitive] problem, we must bear in mind a lesson from computation: we need at least three different levels of explanation. We need a theory of what is computed - what the input to the process is, what has to be recovered from it, and what constraints may guide the process. We need a theory of how the system carries out the computations, that is, a computable theory of the procedure that it uses. We need a theory of the underlying neurophysiology (the 'hardware' of the nerve cells in which the procedure is embodied). Investigations that are restricted to only one of these levels are unlikely to yield a correct explanation."

The Computer and the Mind, Philip N. Johnson-Laird

The Preliminary Remark in the A Deduction is peculiar, in that it reveals Kant in a most uncharacteristic state - virtually stumped and inarticulate. We feel the inevitable frustration of proving "the unavoidable necessity of such a transcendental deduction" (A88/B121) only to discover the "extreme difficulty of the problem." We get caught up in the excitement of embarking upon "an enterprise never before attempted." Perhaps it was this combination of emotions that led Kant to break from his usual method of exposition and "avoid the elaborateness of a complete theory" and tolerate "obscurities in these earlier sections." Given this account, as well as the dissimilarities between the A Deduction and the B Deduction, we are left with a pressing question: What are we to make of the A Deduction, and in particular, the three syntheses?

The form of the argument in the Deduction is the same as that in the Aesthetic. If X is a necessary precondition for Y, and Y is true, then X must be true. Applied to the Deduction this yields "If we can prove that by [the categories] means alone an object can be thought, this will be a sufficient deduction of them, and will justify their objective validity." (A97) One way of proving what is necessary in "thinking" an object, is by describing the process of forming representations and determining which parts of that process are essential. This is the method of proof which Kant employs in the first part of the A Deduction. He argues that "receptivity can make knowledge possible only when combined with spontaneity. Now this spontaneity is the ground of a threefold synthesis which must necessarily be found in all knowledge; namely, the apprehension of representations as modifications of the mind in intuition, and their reproduction in imagination, and their recognition in a concept. These point to three subjective sources of knowledge which make possible the understanding itself - and consequently all experience as its empirical product."

One might think that, out of all the syntheses, apprehension of representations could be handled without spontaneity. However, Kant reminds us that the origins of all representations belong to the inner sense, or in other words, are subject to time. Consequently, they must all be "ordered, connected, and brought into relation." Within a single moment, the representation "can never be anything but absolute unity," and Kant attributes this synthesizing of the manifold (ordering it, connecting it, and bringing it into relation) to the synthesis of apprehension. Furthermore, the synthesis of apprehension is not limited to those representations that are empirical. Even our representations of space and time depend on our ability to synthesize the manifold that receptivity presents us with.

Once Kant has established how it is possible for us to arrive at representations, he moves on to discuss how the mind acts on these representations. One of the operations that the mind can preform on representations is reproduction. Kant considers reproduction to be an act of the imagination, although it is no means the sole function of the imagination. Kant argues that the existence of the operation of reproduction is an empirical fact, evident in our ability to associate representations that follow or accompany each other often enough. Given the existence of this operation, Kant next considers whether there is anything that this operation presupposes. We find that unless we presuppose rules that appearances themselves are subject to, "our empirical imagination would never find opportunity for exercise appropriate to its powers." In other words our representations must be formed such that our mental operators are capable of acting upon them. This leads us to recognize a "pure transcendental synthesis of imagination as conditioning the very possibility of existence." What started out as an empirical synthesis of reproduction as a way of explaining associations and operating on representations, has now become a transcendental synthesis of reproduction that dictates the nature of representations and is a condition for the possibility of experience.

The necessity for the synthesis of reproduction follows smoothly from the synthesis of apprehension. The synthesis of apperception takes as an input the receptivity and produces a single representation of a single instant. However, without the action of the synthesis of reproduction a complete representation could never be achieved. "If I were always to drop out of thought the preceding representations, and did not reproduce them while advancing those that follow, a complete representation would never be obtained." The synthesis of reproduction, in a sense, picks up where the synthesis of apprehension left off with regards to the task of forming a complete representation. The representations formed by the apprehension are useless unless they are unified, and they can only be unified by an operator that can manipulate representations. Manipulation of representations in order to form a complete representation is the task of the synthesis of reproduction and without it "not even the purest and most elementary representations of space and time, could arise. The synthesis of apprehension is thus inseparably bound up with the synthesis of reproduction."

Kant promised us in the Preliminary Remark that a "systematic exposition of these elements of the understanding is first given in [the Section The Synthesis of Recognition in a Concept]." Kant keeps his word, and gives us more than we might have bargained for, in a section that seems like a culmination of all of the ideas he has introduced thus far. He starts out innocently enough, asserting that "all reproduction in the series of representation would be useless" without the "unity that only consciousness can impart to it." Kant then goes on to claim that this "consciousness of the unity of synthesis" is precisely what is meant by the word 'concept'. The synthesis of recognition is merely the faculty which subsumes an object under a concept. The possibility of recognizing an object entails a constraint upon a 'concept' that it "is always, as regards its form, something universal which serves as a rule." This way, recognition of an object under a concept is recognition that the object satisfies a formal logical rule. Of course, we never actually deal with the object, but "only with the manifold of our representations," and "only when we have produced synthetic unity in the manifold of intuition that we are in a position to say that we know the object." Essentially, what this means is that unless we have a unity of apperception (an awareness of ourselves carrying out the synthesis), subsuming of representations under concepts, and consequently our knowledge of objects, would be impossible. So the primary conclusion of the analysis of the synthesis is that the unity of consciousness is the ground "to think any object for our intuitions."

Bearing in mind that the intended conclusion of the Deduction is that 'the manifold in a given intuition is necessarily subject to the categories', we now have enough of a background to question the purpose, validity , and effectiveness of Kant's analysis of the three synthesis. Since the Deduction hinges on demonstrating that the categories are the grounds for the manifold in a given intuition, it is logical to attempt this proof by expounding on the manifold in a given intuition. Indeed, when Kant attempts this, he shows that manifold in a sensible intuition is subject to the original synthetic unity of apperception, as shown above. This relationship that Kant attempted to prove in the A Deduction is actually one of the premises to his proof in the B Deduction. Clearly Kant felt that establishing this relationship between the manifold in a given intuition and the categories was essential to the Deduction. It is possible that the deduction could proceed without this premise, or that this premise could be established through some method other than an account of experience. However, Kant obviously thought that this was the best way to proceed with the deduction.

The validity of the analysis of the synthesis is an issue that has many sides to it. At its core, is the question of whether or not Kant treats an empirical question as if it were a priori. As the quote at the beginning of this paper suggests, questions concerning human cognition need to be treated on three different levels simultaneously. While the question of what needs to be computed may proceed on a priori grounds, the other two questions, concerning how its computed (which algorithm the mind happens to employ) and how the algorithm is actually implemented in the brain, are clearly empirical questions. Kant's explanation of how representation is possible is most certainly an attempted solution to a cognitive problem. He does this by postulating three sub-problems that must be solved by the mind in order for representation to be possible. That he does this to prove an ultimate claim of the necessity of the transcendental apperception, does not change the fact that he is making intermediate empirical claims. Kant could have made the a priori claim that these three synthesis must occur at some point somewhere for representation to be possible. However, his analysis of the synthesis goes beyond simply claiming that they simply must occur somewhere. He attempts to elaborate on the mechanisms that each of these synthesis employ in their functioning. While it might seem plausible that the three synthesis do employ the methods he describes, the reality of their functioning is strictly an empirical matter. Consider his assertion that to recognize an object under a concept is to recognize that it satisfies a rule. This claim goes beyond just stipulating that recognition need occur, it actually proposes the method that recognition employs. Given the difficulties philosophers and computer scientists have encountered in trying to actually specify the necessary and sufficient conditions of even the most mundane objects, it does not require a tremendous leap of imagination to see how it might easily be possible for recognition to implemented using an algorithm other than formal rule satisfaction.

Perhaps the removal of the analysis of the synthesis in the B Deduction in exchange for a "black box" premise (which brackets the question of how the manifold of sensible intuition is possible), is the result of Kant realizing his transgression. This by no means suggests that the analysis of the synthesis are not effective. Remember that the paradigm shift that Kant suggested was a move from the belief that "the object alone must make the representation possible" to the belief that "the representation alone must make the object possible." The mere plausibility of Kant's analysis of the synthesis lends a certain amount of credibility to the proposed paradigm shift, whether or not the empirical elements happen to be correct. Furthermore, if the conclusion to Kant's Deduction is true, there is a need to invent empirical concepts in order to test their truth. For without the concept it is impossible to form a representation of the sensible intuition. This idea is often misunderstood as "you will find what your looking for," but actually means "you won't find anything unless your looking for something." As far as a starting point for what to look for, Kant's analysis of the synthesis is probably the best place to start looking.