Chapter 2: THE DEDUCTION OF THE PURE CONCEPTS OF THE UNDERSTANDING.

Section 2 (Version B): THE A PRIORI GROUNDS OF THE POSSIBILITY OF EXPERIENCE. (p. 151)

• All combination (concept formation) is an act of the understanding.
• Called synthesis because we cannot apply a concept until we have formed it.

• 'I think' must accompany all my representations.
• Intuition: that representation which can be given prior to all thought.
  • Has a necessary relation to 'I think.'
  • Is an act of spontaneity, i.e. it cannot belong to sensibility.
  • AKA Pure Apperception, Original Apperception
• The identity of the apperception of a manifold which is given in intuition contains a synthesis of representations, and is possible only through the consciousness of this synthesis.
• The analytic unity of apperception is possible only under the presupposition of a certain synthetic unity.
• Synthetic unity of the manifold of intuition, as generated a priori, is the ground of the identity of apperception itself, which precedes a priori all my determinate thought.
• Through the 'I,' as simple representation, nothing manifold is given:
  • A manifold is given in intuition which is distinct from the 'I.'
  • Only through combination in one consciousness can it be thought.

• The supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in relation to sensibility is that all the manifold of intuition should be subject to the formal conditions of time and space.
• The supreme principle of the same possibility in its relation to the understanding is that the manifold of intuition should be subject to the conditions of the original synthetic unity of apperception.
• Understanding: the faculty of knowledge.
• The first pure knowledge of understanding is the principle of original synthetic unity of apperception.
  • It is an objective condition of knowledge.
  • It is, itself, analytic.

• The transcendental unity of apperception is how all the manifold given in an intuition is united in a concept of an object.
  • It is objective.
  • It is a subjective unity of consciousness which is a determination of inner sense - through which manifold is empirically given.

• A judgment is the manner in which given modes of knowledge are brought to the objective unity of apperception.
  • 'Is' indicates the objective unity of a given representation's relation to original apperception, and its necessary unity.
• The representations belong to one another in virtue of the necessary unity of apperception in the synthesis of intuitions.
  • That is, according to principles of the objective determination of all representations.
  • Only in this way does there arise from this relation a judgment which is objectively valid.

• All the manifold is determined in respect of one to the logical functions of judgment and is thereby brought into one consciousness.
  • The categories are these functions of judgment.

• The above proposition is the beginning of a deduction of the pure concepts of understanding.
• In proof of the above, the manifold to be intuited must be given prior to the synthesis of understanding, and independently of it.
  • How this occurs remains here undetermined.
• There is no explanation as to why there are so many categories and no more or less.

• To think an object and to know an object are different things.
  • Knowledge involves two factors: the concept and the intuition.
• The only intuition possible to us is sensible, therefore the thought of an object can become knowledge only in so far as the concept is related to objects of the senses.

(24) The Application of the Categories to Objects of the Senses in General (p. 164)

• Since there lies in us a certain form of a priori sensible intuition, the understanding, as spontaneity, is able to determine inner sense through the manifold of given representations in accordance with the synthetic unity of apperception.
  • In this way the categories obtain objective validity.
• Figurative synthesis: the synthesis of the manifold which is possible and necessary a priori.
  • Opposed to combination through the understanding which is thought in the mere category in respect to intuition in general.
  • Figurative Synthesis may be called the Transcendental Synthesis of Imagination.
  • Imagination is the faculty of representing in intuition an object which is not present.
    • It belongs to sensibility.
• Transcendental Synthesis of Imagination is an action of the understanding on sensibility and is its first application.
  • Thereby the ground of all other applications of the understanding.
• Paradox of how inner sense can represent to consciousness ourselves as we appear to ourselves, not as we are.
  • The understanding is able to determine sensibility inwardly.
  • Thus the understanding performs this act upon the passive subject whose faculty it is.
  • The understanding does not find in inner sense a combination of the manifold, it produces it.
  • By means of the inner sense we intuit ourselves only as we are inwardly affected by ourselves.

• This is a thought, not an intuition.
• The consciousness of self is very far from being a knowledge of self, I also need an intuition of the manifold in me.

• Explains the possibility of knowing a priori, by means of the categories whatever objects present themselves to our senses in respect of the laws of their combination.
• Synthesis of Apprehension: that combination of the manifold in an empirical intuition.
  • Synthesis of apprehension of the manifold of appearance must conform to time and space.
• time and space are themselves intuitions which contain a manifold of their own.
  • They are not presented a priori
  • They are not just forms of sensible intuition.
• Unity of synthesis of the manifold and consequently, a combination to which everything represented in space and time conform, is given a priori as the condition of the synthesis of all apprehension.
  • Without or within us.
  • Not in, but with these intuitions.
• Therefore all synthesis in subject to the categories.
• Categories prescribe laws a priori to appearances and therefore nature.
  • The laws do not exist in the appearances but only relative to the subject.
• Pure understanding is not in a position to prescribe through categories any a priori laws other than those which are involved in a nature in general.
  • i.e. in conformity to space and time.
  • Empirical laws cannot be derived from categories but are subject to them.

1. We cannot think an object save through the categories.
2. We cannot know an object so thought save through intuitions corresponding to these concepts.
3. All our intuitions are empirical.
   THEREFORE: There can be no a priori knowledge except of objects of possible experience.

• The Categories contain the grounds of the possibility of all experience in general.

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