Revisiting the "Transcendental Deduction" in the Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason

Bernard Freydberg, Slippery Rock

In The Unity of Reason, Susan Neiman revisits the issue of the transcendental deduction in the Dialectic. She notes a "vacillation" in Kant on this matter, and offers a careful and modest solution in keeping with her general project of securing the central role of the regulative ideas for the critical philosophy. In this paper I will propose a bolder solution along different lines. First, I will briefly explore the apparent vacillation on the deduction and its source, and set the problem. Second, I will give both textual and substantive grounds for there being a transcendental deduction of the ideas, and will eliminate the "vacillation." Third, I will present an outline of Kant's deduction and a brief defense, discussing its resemblances to and departures from the deductions of the Analytic.

I

The vacillation arises from Kant's apparently inconsistent statements on the possibility of a transcendental deduction of the ideas. Neiman cites Kant's statement that the "regulative principles are synthetic a priori propositions with objective but indeterminate validity, for which no transcendental deduc-tion is possible". (A 663-4, Β 691-2) (94) However, he seems to say the opposite just a few pages later (A 670, Β 698), namely that "no a priori concept can be employed with certainty unless a transcendental deduction of it has been given", and proposes "to 'complete the critical work of pure reason' by giving a transcendental deduction of the regulative ideas" which "will be different from that given for the categories . . ."1 Two pages later (one in translation), he claims to have provided such a deduction.

The principal recourse to which Neiman appeals in order to save Kant from himself is that Kant has two senses of transcendental deduction: (a) "conclusive proof", such that "a deduction shows a principle to be necessary for the possibility of experience", and (b) simply "justification", with a legiti-mate form, namely "some principle is necessary, given some end." (95)2

Neiman argues that despite Kant's apparent confusion on the subject, he provides a transcendental deduction based on (b). She seems willing to settle

Neiman, Susan, The Unity of Reason, Oxford University Press (Oxford: 1994), p. 94. She also gives a second source of confusion (see p. 95)

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for a minimal result, accepting Walsh's criticism that Kant has provided a mere "redescription" rather than any sort of deduction of the ideas, saying "it is far from clear that this is insufficient." (95) Walsh's "redescription" is enough to show that there would be a gap without the ideas, and that the ideas fill that gap. That they cannot be "deduced to be principles of the possibility of experience" is manifest from the role of these principles. The ideas allow only of a "subjective derivation3 of them from the nature of our reason . . . " . (A 336, Β 393)

However, it is difficult to see how either Walsh's "redescription" or Neiman's "gap filling" arguments could provide sufficient support for the heavy lifting the ideas are said to do. To believe that even a well-executed description of the ideas can show how they provide systematic unity to the material supplied by cognition would seem to require the mistaken belief that their connection to experience could be established through their mere analy-sis. The "gap filling" arguments cannot establish a connection from the ideas to experience for similar reasons. Though a bit better, the filling of a gap and the declaration of the necessity of this gap-filling says nothing about the nature of the connection, only that there must be a connection of some kind.

Neiman has, however, put her hand on the vexing problem of justifying a connection between the ideas of reason and objects of experience such that the ideas can really regulate the sciences. It is justification enough for her that science is incoherent without the ideas. Not so for Kant.

II

I claim that Kant provides a transcendental deduction of the ideas in the more rigorous sense. With Neiman and others, I do not believe that there can be an objective deduction. There is, however a subjective deduction, the outline of which I will produce. Also, if a reasonable adjustment is made in a key text, there is no vacillation in Kant, who fully believed in the possibility of a transcendental deduction of the ideas in the stronger sense all along.

Kant distinguishes between "objective deduction (Deduktion)" which is impossible for the ideas and a "subjective derivation (Ableitung)", (A 336, Β 393) which is possible. I therefore read "objective" instead of "transcen-dental" at A 663-4, Β 691-2, since Kant writes that he has shown the impos-sibility of a transcendental deduction "above", and this "above" almost certainly refers to A 336, Β 393; also since the only intervening reference to deduction between the two discussions is an utterly harmless one at A 481, Β 509. This neutralizes the disturbing passage, which now (emended) reads "An [objective] deduction of [the ideas] cannot, however, be effected; in the case of the ideas, as we have shown above, such a deduction is never possi-ble." (A 663-4, Β 691-2 including the above changes). So a subjective deduc-tion is not ruled out.

The German is Ableitung. Nieman has "determination" (p. 96).

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Revisiting the "Transcendental Deduction" 2 8 5

Transcendental (objective) deduction, is "[t]he explanation of the manner in which concepts can thus relate a priori to objects .. .". (A 85, Β 117) A subjective deduction " investigate [s] the pure understanding itself, its possibil-ity and the cognitive faculties upon which it rests." (Axvi-xvii). Both the objective and subjective deductions establish the necessity of their conclu-sions. Though there may appear to be less rigor in the subjective deduction than in the objective one, Kant insists that this is not so.4 The subjective side of the deduction may not appear as strong, since all it needs to demonstrate is the necessary interconnection of the subjective faculties brought to bear upon what the objective deduction shows.

There are features of the ideas which suggest that despite the absence of a sensible condition, they have a close connection both with their source and with their end. For one, the ideas are nothing but the a priori categories of relation with their sensible condition removed, so that they are extended a fortiori to the unconditioned. On the face of this, it would seem to follow that they have some necessary association with experience. Also, while the relation between idea and experience may be loose and quite open with regard to the positive instances which fall under it (e. g. of inner states, of causal chains, of specific determinations), it is clear about what is necessarily ruled out, namely anything supersensible. The generation of the ideas is more than a way to fill gaps.

However, in analogy with categories and appearances in the Analytic (see #13), it is entirely plausible that there is no connection between the ideas of reason and the manifold of empirical knowledge under the understanding. It seems possible that the ideas are mere "thought entities", and the manifold of empirical knowledge might well have nothing to do with them at all. This is why Kant needs another transcendental deduction. Just as the subjective deduction in the Analytic investigates the understanding with respect to its possibility and the cognitive faculties on which it depends, the deduction of the ideas must do the same for reason. It will be quite different in execution (as Kant admits) from the earlier one.5 One marked difference can be seen in the general structure. There is no Schematism in the deduction of the Analytic, where it was quite enough to show (a) that the manifold in a given intuition is subject to the categories and that (b) the understanding, by means of the transcendental (figurative) synthesis of imagination, determines pure intuition. The Schematism came afterward, providing the "how" of this ruling and determining. A schema, "always a product of imagination" is a universal procedure for providing an image for a concept. (A 140, Β 179) In the case of the categories, however, the schema "can never be brought to any image whatsoever. It is simply the pure synthesis, determined by a rule of that unity,

4 See Axvi-xvii. On Axvii, Kant says that the subjective deduction is "not really" hypothetical, though its search for causes of given effects may make it appear so.

5 "The very notion of a deduction is compatible with any kind of argumentation suitable for reaching the goal - namely the justification of our claims to a priori knowledge." Henrich, Dieter, "Kant's Notion of a Deduction" in Forste^ Eckhart, ed., Kant's Transcendental Deductions, Stanford University Press (Stanford: 1 9 8 9 ) , p. 3 9 .

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in accordance with concepts, to which the category gives expression." (A 142, Β 181) The schema makes no particular images possible, but connects the categories with pure intuition so that the appearances can make themselves manifest in their presence (mathematical) and in their connections (dynamical).

By contrast, schematization is internal to the deduction of the ideas. There is also a marked difference in the form of the conclusion. The deductions of the Analytic concluded with categorical propositions. The derivation of the ideas concludes with a conditional, the consequent of which contains a maxim. Nevertheless, there is good reason for calling it a transcendental deduction.

Ill

Three characteristics of the ideas of reason provided by the Dialectic are (1) the ideas are necessary concepts of reason, (2) the ideas are concepts of an unconditioned, and (3) reason seeks unity of knowledge to the highest degree. From these and from the deduction and schematism of the Analytic, Kant must show the necessary connection between reason and the empirical knowledge of objects attained by the understanding.

Contrasted sharply with the deduction(s) of the Analytic, the two page length of the deduction of the ideas is remarkably, perhaps suspiciously short. It turns on the distinction between something being given to my reason as an object absolutely, in which case it is determined by the categories, and some-thing being given to my reason as an object in the idea. However the terseness of this deduction is due largely to its presupposition of the earlier one(s), and its three-tier structure is in analogical accord with it. Instead of pure concept > pure intuition > object of experience, there is idea > schema > systematic unity of experience. The three subjective faculties are similarly ordered: 1. Givenness to reason of an object in the idea [REASON] 2. Schema of a concept of a thing in general [IMAGINATION] 3. The object of experience as //derived from the supposed object in the idea [SENSIBILITY] (from A 670, Β 698)

Conclusion: if the three posited ideas lead to systematic unity and if they contribute to the extension of empirical knowledge without being able to contravene it, then it is a necessary maxim to proceed always in accord with the ideas, (from A 671, Β 699)

Comment: the givenness of something to my reason as an "Object in the idea" is an odd formulation, since no objects are said to be given to my reason in any sense. But Kant provides a surrogate-object for which there is no concept, namely a schema which provides a procedure for joining reason to the manifold of sensible objects. Elsewhere, he calls it an analogon of a schema of sensibility, and a maximum. Where a schema in the Analytic functioned as a specific time-determination, its analogical counterpart func-tions as the most general and expansive "thing"-determination, such that any empirical knowledge can qualify.

The (general) idea and schema provide conditions for the possibility of systematic unity, the former guaranteeing the most general unity and the latter

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the widest extension. Because of their detachment from the sensible condi-tion, there is no direct relation of idea and schema to a single object of experience. According to the Analytic, time-determinations alone must con-stitute the relation between objects of experience, and the category and schema make it possible for the objects themselves to determine these relations in time. Here, the idea and schema-analogon make it possible for these consti-tuted relations (empirical knowledge) themselves to be unified in accord not with rules (concepts) but with regulations or maxims.

This unification under the aegis of reason is clearly different in kind from unification of the objects of experience by means of the understanding. Above all, it is not actual unification. But it is clearly possible in principle to unify the empirical knowledge attained by means of the understanding. The idea functions as an analogous, surrogate cause, treating the objects of experience as if they could be systematically gathered under its domain. Once again, not a single object of experience is said to qualify for such gathering. The subjec-tive deduction exhibits the interconnection of the faculties in reason's practi-cally necessary pursuit of systematic unity.

The conclusion of the deduction of the ideas is therefore in logical accord with its premises and in analogical accord with the deduction of the Analytic. Buchdahl's analogy is entirely apt: "[J]ust as the categories are the special expressions of the synthetic unity of the understanding, so the ideas are expressions of the systematic unity of reason ." 6 The conditional form of the deduction is in accord with the detachment from the sensible condition, such that nothing concerning actual objects can be inferred from it. The first part of the antecedent7 merely particularizes what the premises have assumed about a rational idea in general; the second part posits the possibility that these ideas can broaden knowledge of experience without contravening it, merely drawing upon the schema of a maximum which indicates the widest possible scope of empirical knowledge.

According to the consequent, proceeding in accordance with these ideas is a necessary maxim of reason. Like all maxims, this one which serves the speculative interest is "derived, not from the constitution of objects but from the interest of reason in respect of a certain possible perfection of the knowl-edge of the object." (A 666, Β 694) The vagueness in the notion of perfection does not preclude the necessity of the maxim, which insists only upon the pursuit of systematic unity. The actual content or degree of that unity (or disunity) is a wholly empirical matter.

Concerning the criticisms cited earlier, Walsh does not quarrel with Kant's insistence on the "importance and uniqueness of the notion of system in the overall search for knowledge." But given the weakness of the deduction and the questionable actual role of the ideas, he claims that "we can get by with the vaguest of general thoughts"8 instead, upon which we cannot improve.

6 Buchdahl, Gerd, Kant and the Dynamics of Reason, Basil Blackwell (Oxford & Cambridge: 1992), p. 94.

7 The antecedent is one long phrase in the original. 8 Walsh, W.H., Kant's Criticism of Metaphysics, U. of Chicago Press (Chicago: 1975), p. 247.

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Neiman's gap filling is of a piece with Walsh's dismantling of the deduction especially because, like his, it rests ultimately upon the facticity of science. The argument that the practice of science requires that there be some role for regulative notions and for system is a fine contemporary argument, but it is far from a Kantian one and not nearly so ambitious. The Kantian argument, rooted in our subjective sources and in arguments issuing from them, is that all experience and systematic unity take their departure from and are justified only by the a priori characteristics of understanding and reason. This is why genuine transcendental deductions have to be presented.

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