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stankovic, sasa thesis.pdf - Atrium - University of Guelph

stankovic, sasa thesis.pdf - Atrium - University of Guelph

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The categories<br />

Concepts do not rest on the contents <strong>of</strong> knowledge. However, they do rest on representations. It<br />

is now clear on what representations concepts rest. “Thought is knowledge by means <strong>of</strong><br />

concepts. But concepts, as predicates <strong>of</strong> possible judgments, relate to some representation <strong>of</strong> a<br />

not yet determined object” (CPR A69/B94). Concepts rest on the manifold, that is, on the<br />

representations in space and time. The activity <strong>of</strong> synthesizing is the putting <strong>of</strong> these<br />

representations in space and time into concepts (‘der Begriff’). “By syn<strong>thesis</strong>, in its most general<br />

sense, I understand the act <strong>of</strong> putting different representations together, and <strong>of</strong> grasping<br />

[begreifen] what is manifold in them in one [act <strong>of</strong>] knowledge” (CPR B103/A8). In other words,<br />

the activity <strong>of</strong> synthesizing is the conceptualizing <strong>of</strong> the unity <strong>of</strong> the manifold: “only in so far as I<br />

can grasp [begreifen] the manifold in one consciousness, do I call them one and all mine” (CPR<br />

B134). However, if this were the only thing that the activity <strong>of</strong> synthesizing did, my experience<br />

would include only the form <strong>of</strong> representations in space and time. In other words, it would not<br />

include objects, since objects also have a certain content. Therefore the activity <strong>of</strong> synthesizing<br />

must perform still another function. The activity <strong>of</strong> synthesizing is the conceptualizing <strong>of</strong> the<br />

unity <strong>of</strong> the manifold in an imaginative way. “Still, the syn<strong>thesis</strong> is that which gathers the<br />

elements for knowledge, and unites them to [form] a certain content…Syn<strong>thesis</strong> in general, as we<br />

shall hereafter see, is the mere result <strong>of</strong> the power <strong>of</strong> imagination” (CPR A78/B104). Kant argues<br />

that the activity <strong>of</strong> synthesizing includes the activity <strong>of</strong> imagining content where really there is<br />

none. “Imagination is the faculty <strong>of</strong> representing in intuition an object that is not itself present”<br />

(CPR B151). However, Kant does not claim that imagination is an arbitrary creation:<br />

“representation in itself does not produce its object in so far as existence is concerned, for we are<br />

not here speaking <strong>of</strong> its causality by means <strong>of</strong> the will. None the less the representation is a<br />

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