THE PROBLEM IN KANT’S THEORY OF PRIMARY APPERCEPTION
Igor Vladimirovich Berestov
Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia
Keywords: Critique of Pure Reason, unity of self-consciousness in Kant, transcendental apperception, subjectivity in Kant, “I think” in Kant, synthetic unity of apperception
Abstract
We show that the description of the primary apperception in the Critique of Pure Reason (2nd edition) - which is necessary for any synthesis by an act of judgement - contains a contradiction. According to Kant, in order to synthesise by an act of judgement a single representation from the elements of a given in intuition manifold, it is necessary to recognise the representations which are contained in this manifold as my own representations. In order to do this, it is necessary to carry out the synthesis of a certain representation. This synthesis, according to Kant, requires no further syntheses. But the latter synthesis requires a new synthesis. Therefore, a synthesis that does not have other syntheses as a prerequisite for its realisation is impossible. The argument makes use of the semantic analysis of representations (Vorstellungen) that are synthesised by judgments, so that in the present paper we intend to show a change in the understanding of Kant in the light of the “semantic turn”.
|
