Causation; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, German; Reason
I shall merely premise an explanation of what the categories are. They
are conceptions of an object in general, by means of which its
intuition is contemplated as determined in relation to one of the
logical functions of judgement. The following will make this plain. The
function of the categorical judgement is that of the relation of
subject to predicate; for example, in the proposition: “All bodies are
divisible.” But in regard to the merely logical use of the
understanding, it still remains undetermined to which Of these two
conceptions belongs the function Of subject and to which that of
predicate. For we could also say: “Some divisible is a body.” But the
category of substance, when the conception of a body is brought under
it, determines that; and its empirical intuition in experience must be
contemplated always as subject and never as mere predicate. And so with
all the other categories.
Section II Transcendental Deduction of the pure Conceptions of the
Understanding
Of the Possibility of a Conjunction of the manifold representations
given by Sense § 11.
The manifold content in our representations can be given in an
intuition which is merely sensuous—in other words, is nothing but
susceptibility; and the form of this intuition can exist à priori in
our faculty of representation, without being anything else but the mode
in which the subject is affected. But the conjunction (conjunctio) of a
manifold in intuition never can be given us by the senses; it cannot
therefore be contained in the pure form of sensuous intuition, for it
is a spontaneous act of the faculty of representation. And as we must,
to distinguish it from sensibility, entitle this faculty understanding;
so all conjunction whether conscious or unconscious, be it of the
manifold in intuition, sensuous or non-sensuous, or of several
conceptions—is an act of the understanding. To this act we shall give
the general appellation of synthesis, thereby to indicate, at the same
time, that we cannot represent anything as conjoined in the object
without having previously conjoined it ourselves. Of all mental
notions, that of conjunction is the only one which cannot be given
through objects, but can be originated only by the subject itself,
because it is an act of its purely spontaneous activity. The reader
will easily enough perceive that the possibility of conjunction must be
grounded in the very nature of this act, and that it must be equally
valid for all conjunction, and that analysis, which appears to be its
contrary, must, nevertheless, always presuppose it; for where the
understanding has not previously conjoined, it cannot dissect or
analyse, because only as conjoined by it, must that which is to be
analysed have been given to our faculty of representation.
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