Causation; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, German; Reason
It is by means of the transcendental unity of apperception that all the
manifold, given in an intuition is united into a conception of the
object. On this account it is called objective, and must be
distinguished from the subjective unity of consciousness, which is a
determination of the internal sense, by means of which the said
manifold in intuition is given empirically to be so united. Whether I
can be empirically conscious of the manifold as coexistent or as
successive, depends upon circumstances, or empirical conditions. Hence
the empirical unity of consciousness by means of association of
representations, itself relates to a phenomenal world and is wholly
contingent. On the contrary, the pure form of intuition in time, merely
as an intuition, which contains a given manifold, is subject to the
original unity of consciousness, and that solely by means of the
necessary relation of the manifold in intuition to the “I think,”
consequently by means of the pure synthesis of the understanding, which
lies à priori at the foundation of all empirical synthesis. The
transcendental unity of apperception is alone objectively valid; the
empirical which we do not consider in this essay, and which is merely a
unity deduced from the former under given conditions in concreto,
possesses only subjective validity. One person connects the notion
conveyed in a word with one thing, another with another thing; and the
unity of consciousness in that which is empirical, is, in relation to
that which is given by experience, not necessarily and universally
valid.
The Logical Form of all Judgements consists in the Objective Unity of
Apperception of the Conceptions contained therein § 15
I could never satisfy myself with the definition which logicians give
of a judgement. It is, according to them, the representation of a
relation between two conceptions. I shall not dwell here on the
faultiness of this definition, in that it suits only for categorical
and not for hypothetical or disjunctive judgements, these latter
containing a relation not of conceptions but of judgements themselves—a
blunder from which many evil results have followed.[18] It is more
important for our present purpose to observe, that this definition does
not determine in what the said relation consists.
[18] The tedious doctrine of the four syllogistic figures concerns
only categorical syllogisms; and although it is nothing more than
an artifice by surreptitiously introducing immediate conclusions
(consequentiae immediatae) among the premises of a pure syllogism,
to give rise to an appearance of more modes of drawing a conclusion
than that in the first figure, the artifice would not have had much
success, had not its authors succeeded in bringing categorical
judgements into exclusive respect, as those to which all others must
be referred—a doctrine, however, which, according to § 5, is utterly
false.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account