Appendix: THE AMPHIBOLY OF CONCEPTS OF REFLECTION: ARISING FROM THE CONFUSION OF THE EMPIRICAL WITH THE TRANSCENDENTAL EMPLOYMENT OF UNDERSTANDING (p. 276)

• Reflection: that state of mind in which we first set ourselves to discover the subjective conditions under which alone we are able to arrive at concepts.
  • i.e., the consciousness of the relation of given representations to our different sources of knowledge.
  • Does not concern itself with objects themselves with a view of deriving concepts from them directly.
• All judgments require reflection.
• Logical Reflection: a mere act of comparing representations with no regard of faculty of knowledge.
• Transcendental Reflection: the act of distinguishing whether a judgment belongs to pure understanding or sensible intuition.
• The relations in which concepts can stand to one another:
  • Identity and difference.
  • Agreement and opposition.
  • Inner and outer.
  • Determinable and determination (matter and form).
• Since things can have a twofold relation to our faculty of knowledge (to sensibility and to understanding), it is to which they belong that determines the mode in which they belong to each other in comparisons.
  • Whether things are identical or different, in agreement or opposition, etc., cannot be established at once from the concepts themselves by mere comparison, but solely by means of transcendental consideration of the cognitive faculty to which they belong.
  • Therefore, the interrelations of given representations can only be determined through transcendental reflection.
• Identity and Difference:
  • If an object of pure understanding is presented to us on several occasions, it is only one thing.
  • If it is appearance, difference of spatial position at one and the same time is ground for the numerical difference of the object (i.e. it is two different things).
• Agreement and Opposition:
  • If reality is represented only by pure understanding, no opposition can be conceived between realities.
  • The real in appearance does not allow of opposition.
• Inner and Outer:
  • An object of the pure understanding that is inward has no relation to anything different from itself.
  • However, for phenomena in space, its inner determinations are nothing but relations, and it itself is entirely made up of relations.
  • As object of pure understanding, every substance must have inner determinations which pertain to its inner reality.
    • I can only think of those inner accident which my inner sense presents to me.
    • Those inner accidents must be something which is either a 'thinking' or something analogous.
• Matter and Form:
  • Matter signifies the determinable in general, form signifies the determination. These two underlie all other reflection.
  • The understanding demands that something be given first so that it may be in a position to determine anything in definite fashion.
    • Therefore, in the concept of the pure understanding matter is prior to form.
    • In sensible intuition the form (of intuition as a subjective property of sensibility) is prior to all matter (sensations).

Note to the Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection (p. 281)

• Transcendental Location: the place which we assign to a concept, either in Sensibility or in pure understanding.
• Transcendental Topic: the decision as to the place which belongs to every concept and the directions for determining this place according to rules.
• Logical Location: a concept or heading under which many items of knowledge fall.
• Logical Topic: (Aristotle) finding which heading something falls.
• Concepts can be compared logically without regard to which faculty they belong, but it we wish to advance to the objects with these concepts we must first resort to transcendental reflection.
• Leibniz intellectualized appearances while Locke sensualized the concepts of the understanding.
• The principle of the identity of indiscernables is based on a presumption that if a certain distinction is not found in the concept of a thing in general, it is not found in the things themselves.
• According to mere concepts, the inner is the substratum of all relational or outer determinations.
• Thought is in itself no product of the senses and is not limited by them. But it does not follow that it has a pure employment of its own, for then it is without an object.

• Table of Nothing follows the categories
  • I. Concept of None: opposed to and cancels the concepts of all, many and one.
  • II. Reality is something; negation is nothing, namely a concept of the absence of an object.
  • III. The mere form of intuition, without substance, is itself no object, but merely the formal condition of an object (as appearance). Examples are pure space and pure time.
  • IV. The object of a concept which contradicts itself is nothing because the concept is nothing (is impossible).
  • I & IV are empty concepts.
  • II & III are empty data for concepts.