Clarifications for Kant's Transcendental Logic

[ShadowPie]

Hi everyone. I'm reading through Transcendental Logic, and there are a few points I am not exactly clear on, and I don't have have anyone to talk to about this. I think I know the meanings, but I would just like someone to give feedback as to whether I'm on the right track.

1. Transcendental Logic is a subcategory of Special Logic because, unlike General Logic, it is concerned with its contents.

2. Sythesis is a function that simply connects together a group a representations. It does not yield anything such as intuition, knowledge, or concepts. It is when a concept is applied to this synthesis that we receive knowledge.

3. The categories are the a priori concepts that we apply to synthesis to yield knowledge.

 

[BoulderHead]

Greetings ShadowPie, and welcome to PF!

Would you still like to discuss this topic?

 

[ShadowPie]

Thank you for responding.

Those three statements are what I understand from reading the book, but I'm not sure if they are correct. I am also having trouble with determining exactly what transcendental analytic means. I interpret general analytic to be like a computer language syntax checker. If the logical operations are all consistent, then it passes the test. However, if incorrect data were fed to the program, then it would lead to false answers, which could not have been prevented by the syntax checker. I do not quite understand transcendental analytic, however, when it says it deals with "the principles without which no object be thought." Does that mean it is the principles that govern how thought is applied to an object?

 

[BoulderHead]

Sorry for the delay.

1. Transcendental Logic is a subcategory of Special Logic because, unlike General Logic, it is concerned with its contents.

Kant’s Transcendental logic is concerned with what can be known a priori about the use of logic, yes.

2. Sythesis is a function that simply connects together a group a representations. It does not yield anything such as intuition, knowledge, or concepts. It is when a concept is applied to this synthesis that we receive knowledge.

I’m stumbling with this (haven’t read Kant for a while), and two things are coming to mind. The first is that synthetic judgments combine concepts, and out of this it becomes possible to connect synthetic a priori judgments to “any possible world of experience”. This is also to say knowledge begins with experience and not merely derived from it.

Unless you refer to the union of transcendental aesthetic with transcendental analytic… Kant says both are required to make knowledge possible. Or to word it differently; knowledge comes by union between that which receives and that which understands.

Any of that help?

3. The categories are the a priori concepts that we apply to synthesis to yield knowledge.

Concepts give a license to make judgments (if you had no concepts, what could you judge?). But judgments are not limitless so fall under a range (which is what a category establishes). Kant used his metaphysics to deduce the categories from the judgments, and then again he deduces them transcendentally.

I do not quite understand transcendental analytic, however, when it says it deals with "the principles without which no object be thought." Does that mean it is the principles that govern how thought is applied to an object?

It boils down not to what perceptions give to our mind, but what our minds give to perception. Predispositions are brought to bear on objects of experience that are not a part of those objects in and of themselves. So yes, the T.A. is about what you said.

 

[ShadowPie]

Thanks. You answered all my questions except for the second one. I am talking about synthesis of representations which is explained with the categories. Kant describes synthesis as "the act of putting different representations together, and of grasping what is manifold in them in one [act of] knowledge." He expands on this in transcendental deduction.

 

[BoulderHead]

Thanks. You answered all my questions except for the second one. I am talking about synthesis of representations which is explained with the categories. Kant describes synthesis as "the act of putting different representations together, and of grasping what is manifold in them in one [act of] knowledge." He expands on this in transcendental deduction.

You’re welcome.

Intuitions are ordered in time, united within a single consciousness, and then brought under concepts. These things must take place for us to experience in the manner we do, but these things are not inherent in the experience itself; something else must be at work here. What is at work in this process is an a priori function of the understanding, which takes the intuitions, brings them under concepts, and then in effect ‘serves them’ for use in judgments. Judgments fall under the scope of the categories and so, therefore, do intuitions. If such did not take place all would be discombobulated for us and knowledge would be impossible (speaking of that, I drank a single beer tonight which was enough to discombobulate me somewhat, please to forgive, haha).
Taking, for an example, David Hume explaining that causation was never something we experience (just one event followed by another); well, if we don’t experience it then where does the notion come from? Kant says the answer is the transcendental self.

Is that any better?