James Skemp's StrivingLife

General logic 

"Our knowledge springs from two fundamental sources of the mind; the first is the capacity of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions), the second is the power of knowing an object through these representations (spontaneity [in the production] of concepts. Through the first an object is given to us, through the second the object is thought in relation to that [given] representation (which is a mere determination of the mind). Intuition and concepts constitute, therefore, the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge." [92]

Intuitions and concepts "may be either pure or empirical. When they contain sensation (which presupposes the actual presence of the object), they are empirical. When there is no mingling of sensation with the representation, they are pure." [92]

"Our nature is so constituted that our intuition can never be other than sensible; that is, it contains only the mode in which we are affected by objects. The faculty, on the other hand, which enables us to think the object of sensible intuition is the understanding. [...] Without sensibility no object would be given to us, without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. [...] The understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only through their union can knowledge arise." [93]

"We therefore distinguish the science of the rules of sensibility in general, that is, aesthetic, from the science of the rules of the understanding in general, that is, logic. Logic, again, can be treated in a twofold manner, either as logic of the general or as logic of the special employment of the understanding. The former contains the absolutely necessary rules of through without which there can be no employment whatsoever of the understanding. [... The latter] contains the rules of correct thinking as regards a certain kind of objects. The former may be called the logic of elements, the latter the organon of this or that science." [93]

"General logic is either pure or applied. In the former we abstract from all empirical conditions under which our understanding is exercised, i.e. from the influence of the senses, the play of imagination, the laws of memory, the force of habit, inclination, etc., and so from all sources of prejudice, indeed from all causes from which this or that knowledge may arise or seem to arise. [...] General logic is called applied, when it is directed to the rules of the employment of understanding under the subjective empirical conditions dealt with by psychology." [94]

General logic "abstracts from all content of the knowledge of understanding and from all differences in its objects, and deals with nothing but the mere form of thought." [94] It "abstracts from all content of knowledge" and "it treats of the form of thought in general." [95]

Pure general logic "has nothing to do with empirical principles, and does not [...] borrow anything from psychology. [...] What I call applied logic [...] is a representation of the understanding and of the rules of its necessary employment in concreto, that is, under the accidental subjective conditions which may hinder or help its application, and which are all given only empirically. It treats of attention, its impediments and consequences, of the source of error, of the state of doubt, hesitation, and conviction, etc." [95]

Transcendental logic

Transcendental logic "concerns itself with the laws of understanding and reason solely in so far as they relate a priori to objects." [97]

"The term 'transcendental' [...] signifies such knowledge as concerns the a priori possibility of knowledge, or its a priori employment. Neither space nor any a priori geometrical determination of it is a transcendental representation; what can be alone entitled transcendental is the knowledge that these representations are not of empirical origin, and the possibility that they can yet relate a priori to objects of experience." [96]

"It would also treat of the origin of the modes in which we know objects, in so far as that origin cannot be attributed to the objects." [96]

General logic as analytic or dialectic

General logic can be divided into either analytic or dialectic logic.

Before going into that, however, Kant first discusses 'truth.' The normal definition, which is assumed, is that truth is "the agreement of knowledge with it object." [97] However, there is another kind of truth, as regards truth in general. This truth, separate from content, is concerned more with the form of knowledge. It is "the agreement of knowledge with the general and formal laws of the understanding and reason." [98]

If we do not abide by these rules, we are sure to not reach the truth. "Its rules must be applied in the examination and appraising of the form of all knowledge before we proceed to determine whether their content contains positive truth in respect to their object." [98]

"But since the mere form of knowledge, however completely it may be in agreement with logical laws, is far from being sufficient to determine the material (objective) truth of knowledge, no one can venture with the help of logic alone to judge regarding objects, or to make any assertion." [98] Earlier, "[i]t has no touchstone for the discovery of such error as concerns not the form but the content." [98]

"We must first, independently of logic, obtain reliable information; only then are we in a position to enquire, in accordance with logical laws, into the use of this information and its connection in a coherent whole, or rather to test it by these laws." [98-99]

Dialectic logic is "a critique of dialectical illuision," which is "the sophistical art of giving to ignorance [...] the appearance of truth, by the device of imitating the methodical thoroughness which logic prescribes, and of using its 'topic' to conceal the emptiness of its pretensions." [99]

Transcendental logic as transcendental analytic or dialectic

"That part of transcendental logic which deals with the elements of the pure knowledge yielded by understanding, and the principles without which no object can be thought, is transcendental analytic. [...] [T]his transcendental analytic should be used only as a canon for passing judgment upon the empirical employment of the understanding [...]" [100]

It is when we move beyond this, that dialectical illusion comes into play. "The second part of transcendental logic must therefore form a critique of this dialectical illusion, and is called transcendental dialectic [...]" [100]

Continuing on ...

The remainder of the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements will concern these last two; the transcendental analytic, and the transcendental dialectic.

"... [A]ll our intution is nothing but the representation of appearance; [...] the things which we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them as being, nor their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us, and that if the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, be removed, the whole constitution and the relations of objects in space and time, nay space and time themselves, would vanish. As appearances, they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What objects may be in themselves, and apart from all this receptivity of our sensibility, remains completely unknown to us. We know nothing but our mode of perceiving them - a mode which is peculiar to us, and not necessarily shared in by every being, though, certainly, by every human being. With this alone have we any concern." [82]

When I look upon, or sense, a table, I do not see the table itself, but rather an appearance of a table. This appearance is based upon my mode, or way, of perception of objects. I can then have thoughts, internally, about this table, which still does not give me the object itself, but rather again as an object of my experience, 'perceived' by my particular way of thinking about 'inner' objects. "This mode of intuiting in space and time need not be limited to human sensibility. It may be that all finite, thinking beings necessarily agree with man in this respect, although we are not in a position to judge whether this is actually so." [90] However, Kant does not clearly justify that we can ascribe these modes of intuiting to other human beings, unless we are to assume that all appearances of beings like ourselves are human beings.

To move back on track, we are unable to move beyond these appearances to the object in itself, even if our senses were to become magnified, or clarified as much as possible.

"Even if we could bring our intuition to the highest degree of clearness, we should not thereby come any nearer to the constitution of objects in themselves. We should still know only our mode of intuition, that is, our sensibility." [83]

However, we are not to think that objects are mere illusions. "For in an appearance the objects, nay even the properties that we ascribe to them, are always regarded as something actually given." [88] "Our mode of intuition is dependent upon the existence of the object, and is therefore possible only if the subject's faculty of representation is affected by that object." [90]

There must be some 'thing' that is sensed by our intuition. What this is, we can judge only by how it appears to us, or how we perceive it. Unlike an illusion, however, these appearances are accessible to other beings that perceive as we do. The table is not an illusion because you too can perceive the table.

Having covered the transcendental aesthetic, Kant moves onto the transcendental logic, before leaving the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements.

In the Introduction to the Transcendental Aesthetic, which makes up the first part of the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements, Kant told us that we'd be first investigating the "two pure forms of sensible intuition, serving as principles of a priori knowledge, namely, space and time." [67]

Section I: Space

"By means of outer sense, a property of our mind, we represent to ourselves objects as outside of us, and all without exception in space. In space their shape, magnitude, and relation to one another are determined or determinable." [67] Kant sums up his investigation of space near the end of the section.

"Space does not represent any property of things in themselves, nor does it represent them in their relation to one another. That is to say, space does not represent any determination that attaches to the objects themselves, and which remains even when abstraction has been made of all the subjective conditions of intuition." [71]

"Space is nothing but the form of all appearances of outer sense. It is the subjective condition of sensibility, under which alone outer intuition is possible for us. [...] Is it, 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 alone we can have outer intuition, namely, liability to be affected by objects, the representation of space stands 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." [71-72]

"The taste of wine does not belong to the objective determinations of the wine, not even if by the wine as an object we mean the wine as appearance, but to the special constitution of sense in the subject that tastes it. Colours are not properties of the bodies to the intuition of which they are attached, but only modifications of the sense of sight, which is affected in a certain manner by light Space, on the other hand, as condition of outer objects, necessarily belongs to their appearance or intuition. Taste and colours are not necessary conditions under which alone objects can be for us objects on the senses. They are connected with the appearances only as effects accidentally added by the particular constituition of the sense organs. Accordingly, they are not a priori representations, but are grounded in sensation, and, indeed, in the case of taste, even upon feeling (pleasure and pain), as an effect of sensation. [...] Through space alone is it possible that things should be outer objects to us." [73-74]

"[S]pace is not a form inhering in things in themselves as their intrinsic property, [...] objects in themselves are quite unknown to us, and [...] what we call outer objects are nothing but mere representations of our sensibility, the form of which is space." [73-74]

Before we move from these quotes to what Kant is saying, we shall move to time.

Section II: Time

"Inner sense, by means of which the mind intuits itself or its inner state, yields indeed no intuition of the soul itself as an object; but there is nevertheless a determinate form [namely, time] in which alone the intuition of inner states is possible, and everything which belongs to inner determinations is therefore represented in relations of time." [67-68]

"Time is not something which exists of itself, or which inheres in things as an objective determination, and it does not, therefore, remain when abstraction is made of all subjective conditions of its intuition. [...] [T]ime is nothing but the subjective condition under which alone intuition can take place in us." [76]

"Time is nothing but the form of inner sense, that is, of the intuition of ourselves and of our inner state." [77]

"Time is the formal a priori condition of all appearances whatsoever. Space, as the pure form of all outer intuition, is so far limited; it serves as the a priori condition only of outer appearances. But since all representations, whether they have for their objects outer things or not, belong, in themselves, as determinations of the mind, to our inner state; and since this inner state stands under the formal condition of inner intuition, and so belongs to time, time is an a priori condition of all appearances whatsoever. It is the immediate condition of inner appearances (of our souls), and thereby the mediate condition of outer appearances. Just as I can say a priori that all outer appearances are in space, I can also say, from the principle of inner sense, that all appearances whatsoever, that is, all objects of the senses, are in time, and necessarily stand in time-relations." [77]

Time "has objective validity only in respect of appearances, these being things which we take as objects of our senses. [...] Time is therefore a purely subjective condition of our (human) intuition (which is always sensible, that is, so far as we are affected by objects), and in itself, apart from the subject, is nothing." [77-78]

"[S]ince our intuition is always sensible, no object can ever be given to us in experience which does not conform to the condition of time. [...] [W]e deny that it belongs to things absolutely, as their condition or property, independently of any reference to the form of our sensible intuition." [78]

Space and time, in other words

We have experience of the world outside of us through sensation. Our mind processes these experiences as appearances of objects, or appearaces of the world as being a certain way. We have both an outer sense, of objects outside of us, as well as an inner sense, of states of our mind.

For example, when I taste a drink, I give it the property of tasting a certain way. I also see the drink as being in one place, for example, on the table, and then in another, such as in my hand. It is space which is the form of our outer intuitions; objects having certain properties, including shape and location. Time is a form of our inner intuitions; objects moving or changing, as well as states succeeding other states.

Time is something that we add to the experience of the object; something that we use to make sense of our experiences, to aid in our understanding of those objects. As such, since they apply to the appearances of those objects, we cannot ascribe them to the objects themselves, but only to the objects as they appear to us.

Time is presupposed of all of our experiences. This is because for every external experience, we have an internal one as well, but not vice-versa.

Space and time must be a priori in order to be general, true, rules. If, instead, they were based upon experience, they, like our experiences, would have the possibility of being wrong, or false.

Just as their is one space, there is only one time. No intuition that we (as man) have exists outside of both space and time, since all our intuitions are sensible. We can not think of an external object as existing outside of space; it must necessarily be some where. Likewise, our thoughts flow through time; it is impossible to think of a thought, or a state of our mind as not coming either before or after another thought.

Since space and time are the form of appearances, they really exist, albeit not as objects themselves.

Idealism 

In §7 of this part, Kant confronts idealism, "which teaches that the reality of outer objects does not allow of strict proof. On the other hand, the reality of the object of inner sense (the reality of myself and my state) is [...] immediately evident through consciousness. The former may be merely an illusion; the latter is, on their view, undeniably something real." [80]

If one were to believe that Kant is denying that time, or change, is real, he replies that it is indeed real. "Time is [...] to be regarded as real, not indeed as object but as the mode of representation of myself as object." [79] It is "the condition of all our experiences." [79]

"Time and space, taken together, are the pure forms of all sensible intuition, and so are what make a priori synthetic propositions possible. But these a priori sources of knowledge, being merely conditions of our sensibility, just by this very fact determine their own limits, namely, that they apply to objects only in so far as objects are viewed as appearances, and do not present things as they are in themselves." [80]

So, both time and space are real, but only in so far as they are the form of all of man's sensible intuition. We cannot, however, make this same claim of objects outside of their appearances (to us), since have no experiences of these things in themselves (outside of sensation).