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

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

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employed in determination <strong>of</strong> the manifold <strong>of</strong> a given intuition. Consequently, the manifold in a<br />

given intuition is necessarily subject to the categories” (CPR B43). In other words, “a manifold,<br />

contained in an intuition which I call mine, is represented, by means <strong>of</strong> the syntheses <strong>of</strong> the<br />

understanding, as belonging to the necessary unity <strong>of</strong> self-consciousness; and this is effected by<br />

means <strong>of</strong> the category” (CPR B144). Therefore, it is only by means <strong>of</strong> the categories that I am<br />

able to understand the manifold as or into objects. “Indeed, it is because [the understanding]<br />

contains these [pure] concepts that it is called pure understanding; for by them alone can it<br />

understand anything in the manifold <strong>of</strong> intuition, that is, think an object <strong>of</strong> intuition” (CPR<br />

A80/B106).<br />

I have defined the ability to understand in terms <strong>of</strong> the activities <strong>of</strong> unifying and<br />

synthesizing. To be able to understand is to unify and synthesize, in other words, it is to turn the<br />

multiplicity <strong>of</strong> representations in space and time into my experience <strong>of</strong> objects. “Understanding<br />

is, to use general terms, the faculty <strong>of</strong> knowledge. This knowledge consists in the determinate<br />

relation <strong>of</strong> given representations to an object; and an object is that in the concept <strong>of</strong> which the<br />

manifold <strong>of</strong> a given intuition is united. Now all unification <strong>of</strong> representations demands unity <strong>of</strong><br />

consciousness in the syn<strong>thesis</strong> <strong>of</strong> them” (CPR B137). Now Kant’s analysis <strong>of</strong> the ability to<br />

understand makes it seem as if the forms <strong>of</strong> representations preceded representations in space<br />

and time to which they were then related by the activity <strong>of</strong> synthesizing. In other words, Kant’s<br />

analysis makes it seem as if concepts preceded my experience <strong>of</strong> objects. This is in fact Kant’s<br />

manner <strong>of</strong> presentation. However, Kant argues, specifically in the section on the transcendental<br />

deduction that he does not think that this is what actually takes place in knowledge. There is no<br />

knowledge that precedes the knowledge <strong>of</strong> objects in the sense that it can exist without objects.<br />

All knowledge is always already knowledge <strong>of</strong> objects or otherwise it is nothing. Kant begins his<br />

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