BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

202
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM
suggested. As we saw in an earlier chapter, Kant allows cognitive acts
and processes to take place without consciousness. This idea, in a slightly
modified version, is also explicitly present in the Critique. Instead of
saying that part of the cognitive process, or the representations involved,
are unconscious, Kant now introduces the notion of ‘obscure’ [dunkele]
representations. An obscure representation, he explains, is not totally
without consciousness, but it is a representation with very little
consciousness. This revision may be seen as the necessary consequence of
the idea, promoted in the Critique, that the ‘I think’ is a consciousness
that accompanies all concepts. Consciousness in general is not a
representation by which a certain object may be discerned, but simply
the general form of an object, insofar as it is to count as part of our
knowledge (A 346/B 404). According to this theory, consciousness is an
absolute condition of having experience [Erkenntnis]. This does not
mean, however, that cognition is always conscious in the ordinary sense
of the term, that is, being the explicit focus of attention. There are a
number of representations that are not explicit in this way. Kant calls
these representations obscure. Cognition involving these representation
may be said to proceed at an obscure level.
The notion of an obscure representation is defined in a footnote at B
414-415:
Clarity is not, as the logicians say, the consciousness of a
representation; for a certain degree of consciousness, which, however,
is not sufficient for memory, must be met with even in some obscure
representations, because without any consciousness we would make
no distinction in the combination of obscure representations; yet we
are capable of doing this with the marks of some concepts (such as
those of right and equity, or those of a musician who, when
improvising, hits many notes at the same time). Rather a
representation is clear if the consciousness in it is sufficient for a
consciousness of the difference between it and others. To be sure, if
this consciousness suffices for a distinction, but not for a consciousness
of the difference, then the representation must still be called obscure.
So there are infinitely many degrees of consciousness down to its
vanishing. (B 414-415)
The distinction between clear and obscure representations does not
conform to the opposition between conscious and unconscious
representations. There are obscure representations among which we
make distinctions, and this we could not do without consciousness. What
makes these distinctions obscure is the fact that the consciousness
involved is too weak to leave behind any memories.