(Kant Studien) J. Michael Young - Kant On The Construction of Arithmetical Concepts - Original Ocr

Young, J. M.
, Lawrence Kansas, Kant on the Construction of Arithmetical

Concepts , Kant-Studien, 73:1 (1982) p.17
Kant on the Construction of Arithmetical Concepts
by ]. Michael Young, Lawrence/Kansas
The notion of construction of concepts plays a prominent role in Kant's account of
mathematical knowledge. My aim is to elucidate this notion, at least insofar as it applies
to arithmetical concepts. In doing so I hope to show that it is richer than commentators
have recognized, and thus that Kant's view, at least on arithmetic, are on certain points
more defensible than they have often been thought to be. I begin by summarizing
Kant's remarks concerning construction and by pointing out a major problem to which
they seem to give rise. In the second section I then consiCler in some detail an example
of what Kant would classify as the symbolic construction of an arithmetical concept.
Reflection on this example indicates how the problem raised in section I can be
resolved. In the third section I consider what Kant would label the ostensive construc-
tion of a concept. Building upon section II, I try to show that Kant is right in thinking
that we can ground a priori judgments, at least in arithmetic, upon ostensive construc-
tions. In the fourth section I address a wide variety of questions which arise out of
sections II and III, including the question of whether aril:hmetical iudgments must be
grounded on construction.
What distinguishes mathematics from other branches of knowledge, according to
Kant, is not a subject matter peculiar to itself (e. g., quantity) but a unique method,
i. e., a unique way of grounding judgments. Mathematics isa form of knowledge gained
by reason, so that its judgments cannot be grounded empirically, but it differs from the
other principal form of knowledge gained by reason, namely, philosophy. For philoso-
phy is 'the knowledge gained by reason from concepts' alone, while mathematics, on
the other hand, is 'the knowledge gained by reason from the construction of concepts'
(A 713/B 741)'.
'To construct a concept,' Kant says, is 'to exhibit c.: priori the intuition which
corresponds to that concept' (ibid.). At one level, it seems quite obvious what this
, Quotations, unless otherwise indicated" are from Norman Kemp Smith's translation of the
Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd impression with corrections, London: Macmillan. 1963. In
customary fashion I cite only the pagination of the first (A) and second (B) edilillns of the
Critique.
0022-8877/82/0731-0002$2.00
Copyright by Walter de Gruyter & Co.
Copyright (c) 2005 ProQuest Information and Learning Company
Copyright (c) Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
18 J. Michael Young
means. An intuition, in Kant's sense of the term, is a representation which relates to its
object immediately or directly2. It is a representation, therefore, of a particular object in
its particularity, a representation of that particular object and no other. A concept,
which is the kind of representation from which intuitions are to be distinguished, might
also be said to be a representation of a particular object. The concept of typewriter, for
example, might be said to be a representation of the particular typewriter at which I am
working while writing this paper. Clearly, however, in conceiving of a typewriter I do
not mean to represent this particular typewriter rather than any other; indeed, my
concept would be quite unaffected even if this particular machine had never existed.
The concept of a typewriter is thus a general representation, i. e., the representation of
a kind of thing, and it is also discursive, i. e., it relates to particular objects only by way
of other representations. An intuition of this particular typewriter, by contrast, is a
representation of it as just the particular that it is. It is a singular representation, and it
relates immediately to its object. When Kant says that to construct a concept is to
exhibit a priori the intuition that corresponds to it, what he means, therefore, is that it is
to provide ourselves with the intuition of a particular object, one which somehow
'displays' or 'exhibits' the concept in question. His view, accordingly, is that
mathematical judgment have to be based upon such intuitions.
That this interpretation is correct seems clear enough. After asserting that mathemat-
ical knowledge rests upon the construction of concepts, Kant goes on - clearly with the
intention of simply stating his point in a different way - to say that whereas philosophy
'considers the particular only in the universal,' mathematics considers 'the universal in
the particular, or even in the single instance .. .' (A 714/B 742). He also says that
philosophy 'confines itself to universal concepts', while mathematics 'can achieve
nothing by concepts alone but hastens at once to intuition, in which it considers the
concept in concreto .. .' (A 715/B 743). His point, it seems clear, is that it is distinctive
of mathematicians, not merely to frame the concept of something of a certain kind, but
to provide themselves with the representation of a particular thing which displays or
exhibits what is thought in that concept. They then ground their judgments upon what
they can observe to be true of that particular thing, rather than upon what they can
discover through reflection upon the mere concept of things of that kind. This, of
course, is precisely what Kant has in mind when he argues that the important
propositions of mathematics are all synthetic. His contention is that we cannot ground
a mathematical judgment through analysis of its subject-concept. Rather, 'we must go
beyond this concept and appeal to the intuition in which it is given' (A 721/B 749). To
construct the concept is precisely to provide ourselves with the requisite intuition, as
the following passage indicates:
2 As stated this is not correct, for one of the central theses of the Critique is that intuitions, taken
in abstraction from concepts, are not representations of objects at all. In defining intuition,
accordingly, Kant is quite careful, saying not that an intuition is a representation which relates to
its object immediately, but rather that it is that through which cognition is immediately related
to objects. Since this point is not important for my purposes, and since it would complicate the
exposition to take it into account, I ignore it.
Construction of Arithmetical Concepts 19
Suppose a philosopher be given the concept of a triangle and he be left to find out, in his own
way, what relation the sum of its angles bears to a right angle. He has nothing but the concept of a
figure enclosed by three straight lines, and possessing three angles. However long he meditates on
this concept, he will never produce anything new. He can analyze and clarify the concept of a
straight line or of an angle or of the number three, but he can arrive at any properties not
already contained in these concepts. Now let the geometrician take up these questions. He at once
begins by construction a triangle. Since he knows that the sum of two right angles is exactly the
sum of all the adjacent angles which can be constructed on a straight line, he prolongs one side of
his triangle and obtains two adjacent angles, which together are equal to two right angles. He then
divides the external angle by drawing a line parallel to the oFPosite side of the triangle, and
observes (sieht) that he has thus obtained an external adjacent angle which is equal to an internal
angle - and so on. In this fashion, through a chain of inferences guided throughout by intuition, he
arrives at a fully evident and universally valid solution of the problem (A 716/B 744-5).
The passage confirms that when Kant talks of constructmg a concept, he does indeed
have in mind an activity whereby we provide ourselves with the intuition of a particular
object. It also shows how Kant's usage of 'construction' is related to that of the
geometry of his time. One of the standard steps in a Euclidean proof was the 'ecthesis'
or 'setting out,' in which the geometer constructed a particular figure of the kind about
which something was to be proved). In this sense of the term, which Kant himself
employs in this passage, the particular figure is said to be constructed. In Kant's official
sense it is rather the concept exemplified in the figure that is said to be constructed. But
obviously the two senses are closely connected. In geometry, to construct (in Kant's
technical sense) a concept is to construct (in the usual sense) a figure exemplifying it.
More generally, to construct a concept is to bring into being a sensible particular that
exhibits or displays what is thought in the concept in question.
If it seems clear what Kant means by 'construction,' it seems equally clear that there
are serious problems with his view. As Kant himself recognizes (e. g., A 721/B 749), his
account implies that there is a deep similarity between mathematical judgments and
empirical judgments. Both are synthetic and both therefore rest, not upon the concept
that we have of the subject of our judgment but upon representations that we have of
particulars which exhibit or display that concept. At the same time, though, mathemat-
ical judgments are supposed to be a priori, i. e., necessary and strictly universal,
allowing of no exceptions whatsoever. Empirical judgments, on the other hand, are
supposed to be a posteriori, being only contingently true and possessing only compara-
tive universality. They may assert that something holds as a rule, but they cannot
exclude the possibility of exceptions (d. B. 3-4). It is difficult to see how the two kinds
of judgments can differ in this way, however, if indeed they both rest upon intuition of
particulars. For empirical judgments cannot be necessary, according to Kant, just
because they rest merely upon observation, which reveals only that particular things do
have a certain property, not that they must. Such judgments cannot possess strict
universality either, just because they can only be grounded on a limited sampling from
) The relation between Kant's notion of construction and the traditional Euclidean notion is
discussed by ]. Hintikka in Kant on the Mathematical Method, Monist, vol. 51, no. 3 (July,
1967), pp. 360 ff.
Inatltut fOr Systematische
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20 J. Michael Young
the indefinitely large class of things that might instantiate the subject-concept. If
mathematical judgments, like empirical judgments, are also to rest upon what one
observes or sees (sieht) in particular instances of the subject-concept, then it seems that
they too will be incapable of being either necessary or strictly universal'.
Kant tries to resolve this problem by asserting that there are two distinct ways of
passing beyond our concept and appealing to an intuition in which an instance of the
concept is represented:
But I can pass from the concept to the corresponding pure or empirical intuition, in order to
consider it in that intuition in concreto, and so to know, either a priori or a posteriori, what are the
properties of the object of that concept. The a priori method gives us the construction of the
concept, the a posteriori method our merely empirical (mechanical) knowledge, which is incapable
of yielding necessary and apodeictic propositions (A 7211B 749).
It is not obvious how this distinction can be defended, however. When he talks of
exhibiting a concept in intuition, Kant seems to have in mind either the imagining of an
instance or the actual producing of an instance on paper, chalkboard, or the like. Thus,
speaking of the procedure of the geometer, he says:
I construct a triangle by representing the object which corresponds to this concept either by
imagination alone, in pure intuition, or in accordance therewith also on paper, in empirical
intuition ... (A 713/B 741).
He insists that we do this 'in both cases completely a priori, without having
borrowed the pattern from any experience.' He also insists that the 'single figure which
This objection, in one form or another, is often stated. See for example N. Kemp Smith, A
Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason', 2nd edition, New York: Humanities Press,
1962, pp.40-1; W.H.Walsh, Kant's Criticism of Metaphysics, Chicago: Chicago University
Press, 1975, pp.25-6; R. P. Wolff, Kant's Theory of Mental Activity, Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1963, pp. 74-5. Unfortunately, though some commentators agree with Kant
that mathematical judgments can be grounded upon constructions, they typically do little to
answer the objection, saying only that the objects which exhibit the concepts are objects of pure
intuition, or a priori objects, etc. See for example S. Korner, Kant, Baltimore: Penguin Books,
1955, pp.36-7, and H.J.Paton, Kant's Metaphysic of Experience, London: George Allen &
Unwin, 1936, vol. I, p. 160, and vol. II, p.432. Responses of this sort only put a name to the
problem, they do not resolve it.
The most thorough discussion of this problem of which I am aware, and the most serious
attempt to resolve it, is that by D. P. Dryer, in Kant's Solution for Verification in Metaphysics,
Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1966. pp.265-82. My discussion parallels Dryer's in some
ways, especially in emphasizing the fact that construction involves exhibition of a concept in an
intuited particular, and in developing the problems associated with this. I focus on the
construction of arithmetical rather than of geometrical concepts, however, and this is a
significant difference, since I think Kant's view can be developed far more satisfactorily with
reference to arithmetic. I also consider symbolic construction at length, which Dryer does not.
Charles Parsons, in Kant's Philosophy of Arithmetic (in Philosophy, Science, and Method: Essays
in Honor of Ernest Nagel, ed. by S. Morgenbesser, P. Suppes and M. White, New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1969, pp. 568-94), offers an excellent critical survey of major interpretations of
Kant's view concerning arithmetic. The source of my disagreement with Parsons' interpretation
is indicated below. Cf. n. 15.
Construction of Arithmetical CorKepts 21
we draw is empirical, and yet it serves to express the concept, without impairing its
universality' (ibid.). But mere insistence does little to increase plausibility. Whether the
instance with which we provide ourselves be one that we imagine or one that we
actually produce on paper or chalkboard, in either case it seems that any judgment
based on observation of it will, like an empirical judgment, be incapable of necessity or
strict universality.
At certain points, when this problem is uppermost in his mind, Kant suggests an
intriguing line of thought. Although we provide ourselve:5 with the representation of a
particular, he argues, we do not base our judgments merely upon inspection or
observation of this instance. On the contrary, we attribute to the particular instance
only those properties which bc10ng universally to all instances, not just any that we
may happen to note - or think we note - in this one instance. Just for this reason, he
suggests, we are justified in judging that what holds in this particular instance holds
universally and necessarily of all instances. Thus, trying to explain how it is that the
figure which the geometer imagines or draws 'is empirical, and yet it serves to express
the concept, without impairing its universality,' Kant says that
in this empirical intuition \\'e consider only the act whereby we construct the concept, and abstract
from the many determinations (for instance, the magnitude of the sides and of the angles), which
are quite indifferent, as not altering the concept 'triangle' (A 71 "liB 742).
In a similar vein, he says that the particular object that we represent is 'determined by
certain universal conditions of construction' (ibid.) and that 'whatever follows from the
universal conditions of the construction must be universally valid of the object of the
concept thus constructed' (A 715/B 743).
The problem with this line of thought is that it may seem to imply that the intuition
of the particular is wholly nugatory. If, in making judgments about this particular, we
can attribute to it only those properties which we already think in the concept of a thing
of this kind, and none of those that we simply happen to observe in the particular itself,
then there would seem to be no necessity of our providin g oursc1ves with an intuition
of it in the first place. The intuited particular would serve at best as a sensible reminder
of what is already thought in the concept itself, and our judgments would be grounded,
not on the particular itself, but rather upon the concept it is supposed to exhibit or
display. Mathematical judgments would thus turn out to be analytic after all.
More careful attention shows, however, that this objection is misplaced. In explain-
ing how it is that we can generalize from the intuited particular by which we construct a
concept Kant does say that this is because we do not allow ourselves to attribute to the
particular just any property or determination that we observe - or think we observe - in
it. He does not say, however, that we only allow ourselve:, to attribute to the particular
those properties that are thought in the concept that it serves to exhibit or display. He
says rather that while we are dealing with an object of empirical intuition we 'consider
only the act whereby we construct the concept.' He goes Dn suggest that this act has to
conform to certain universal conditions, which he calls the 'universal conditions of the
construction' of the concept in question (A 716/B 744). His view, accordingly, is that
22 J. Michael Young
we can generalize from the intuited particular just because we allow ourselves to
attribute to it only what is implicit in these universal conditions of construction, these
being distinct from the concept itself.
This distinction turns out to be extremely important. Once we see what Kant means
by 'universal conditions of construction' we can also see that his view regarding
mathematical knowledge is far more defensible, as well as more interesting, than it first
seems to be.
II
We can best proceed by focusing on Kant's views concerning arithmetic, ignoring the
more problematic discussions of geometry. His views on arithmetic can best be
approached indirectly, through reflection on the way in which we do in fact charac-
teristically ground arithmetical judgments.
Kant is occasionally assailed for holding the ridiculous view that whenever we want
to determine the sum of two numbers we must supply ourselves with suitable
collections of fingers, dots on paper, or the like, and reach the answer by counting. I
see no reason to think that he holds this view. I do think he holds that the activity of
counting or enumerating plays an essential role in arithmetic, so that the knowledge we
have of elementary arithmetical truths is dependent on our mastering, and understand-
ing, this activity. I also think that this is an important point which may well be
defensible. We will return to this point later. For the present, however, let us consider
how we do in fact come to make judgments about sums of relatively large numbers, and
what Kant might say about such judgments.
If asked for the sum of seventy-nine and eighty-six, we will not begin by providing
ourselves with a collection of seventy-nine fingers, dots, or whatever, and setting these
alongside a distinct collection of eighty-six similar objects. Instead, we write down the
numeral strings '79' and '86,' one atop the other and properly aligned. We then add
nine and six, recalling that their sum is fifteen, which is expressed by the numeral string
'15'. We write down a '5,' carry a '1,' and so on, finally coming to the conclusion that
the sum of these two numbers may be expressed as '165,' and that the sum is therefore
one hundred sixty-five. This is, of course, not the only procedure that we might use.
We might, for example, express each of the two numbers in binary notation, writing
down the numeral strings '1001111' and '1010110,' one atop the other, and then using
the algorithm for binary addition to determine that the sum may be expressed as
'10100101,' which again represents the number one hundred sixty-five. Whatever the
procedure, however, the point of importance is that we do make use of some
procedure. We engage in a certain activity, which might be described as 'calculating,'
'figuring,' 'reckoning,' or - more quaintly but also more descriptively - 'ciphering'. By
performing this activity and by noting its outcome we come to make the judgment that
seventy-nine and eighty-six are one hundred sixty-five.
Now Kant himself never discusses calculations. It seems clear, nonetheless, that
calculation exemplifies his notion of construction. Whether we do a sum, as we
commonly, say, 'in our heads,' or whether we work it out on paper or chalkboard, in
either case we provide ourselves with something we can perceive or imagine - in Kant's
terms, with something we can intuit. What we intuit serves, moreover, to exhibit or
display the concept of the sum we seek to determine, so that by performing certain
activities on or with it we come to the point where we can judge what that sum is. There
is, of course, an important difference between the calculator's strings of numerals and
the geometer's diagrams. The numeral string '79' does not exemplify or instantiate the
corresponding arithmetical concept, while geometrical diagrams do exemplify (at least
approximately) the concepts that they serve to construct. In Kant's terminology, a
numeral string does not provide an ostensive construction of the corresponding
arithmetical concept. The point remains, nonetheless, that it does exhibit or display
what is thought in that concept. Since the mode of exhibition is symbolic, the numeral
string can be said to provide a symbolic construction of the corresponding arithmetical
concept. The column of numeral strings that we use in calculation can likewise be said
to provide a symbolic construction of the concept of the sum that we seek to determine.
The notion of symbolic construction is one that Kant himself suggests (A 717/B 745),
albeit with different examples in mind".
This extension of the notion of construction from the ostensive to the symbolic case
is of course significant, and it raises a variety of important questions. Continued
reflection on calculation will serve to clarify the notion of symbolic construction,
however, and this in turn will help to elucidate the notion of ostensive construction.
The difficulties discussed in section I had to do with what we can now call ostensive
constructions. The very same difficulties arise once again in connection with symbolic
constructions, however. It seems clear that we do reach the judgment that seventy-nine
and eighty-six are one hundred sixty-five by first producing a symbolic exhibition of
the concept of the sum of seventy-nine and eighty-six (which we do by writing down
the numeral strings '79' and '86,' one atop the other), by then performing certain
activities in which the symbols figure as elements (writing down a '5' at the bottom of
the right-most column, carrying the' 1,' etc.), and by then noting or observing that the
outcome of our activities is the numeral string '165,' wh:iCh we take to represent the
number that is the sum we had sought. But how is this possible? It is, after all, an a
priori judgment that we finally make. How can an a priori judgment be based on the
mere observation that the activity that we perform with certain imagined or written
symbols has a certain outcome?
5 There is implicit reference to our use of a numeral system of base ten at A 78/B 104: 'Thus our
counting, as is easily seen in the case of larger numbers, is a synthesis according to concepts,
because it is executed according to a common ground of unity, as for instance, the decade.' The
suggestion is not further developed.
6 Kant applies the notion of symbolic construction only to algebra. One might of course question
my extension of the notion to calculation. In the present section I defend that extension directly,
showing that calculation does provide an instance of symbolic construction. In section IV I
consider and reject an alternative interpretation of Kant's comments on algebra.
24 J. Michael Young
The answer, I think, is that the judgment is not based on anything that can plausibly
be called mere observation. It is true that in calculating we do deal with a particular
collection of characters or marks, say those that we have written on a piece of paper,
but it should be clear that we do not deal with them as perceptual objects in their own
right, attributing to them whatever properties they may happen to exhibit. If one '6'
happens to be larger than another, for instance, or to have a different color or shape, we
recognize that this is quite irrelevant. We treat the characters that we intuit merely as
instances of the Arabic numerals, ignoring everything else about them. It is also true
that we perform an activity which eventuates in our having written down a string of
numerals, and that we base our arithmetical judgment on the noted outcome of this
activity. It should be clear, however, that this activity is no mere tinkering, which
simply happens to yield a certain outcome. Calculation is governed by a clear and
precise system of rules. These rules, moreover, are not like mere recipes in a cookbook.
They do not merely provide recommendations as to how we can best perform the
activity in question. They serve, much more strongly, to define the activity itself, to
specify what it is to calculate a sum. If we fail to follow these norms or rules,
accordingly, it isn't that we have calculated a sum carelessly, but rather that because of
our carelessness we have failed to calculate the sum at all. When we note the outcome of
our activity, accordingly, we are not merely observing that a certain string of numerals
has turned up at the bottom of the column. We are noting rather that the procedure of
calculation which is defined by the rules just alluded to yields this numeral string as its
only and inevitable outcome.
These points are reflected in the way that we quite naturally talk about calculation.
When someone has done everything just as it ought to be done, we can say that he has
performed the calculation. We may distinguish between his performance of the activity
at one time and at another, of course, or between his performance and someone else's.
So long as all these performances are properly executed, however, they all qualify as
performances of the calculation. When we make the arithmetical judgment, accord-
ingly, we do not base it merely on the observation that a certain numeral string has
turned up at the bottom of the column. We base it instead on the judgment that this
numeral string has turned up as the outcome of the calculation.
As these comments suggest, when we ground an arithmetical judgment on the
performance of a calculation we do in fact presuppose the truth of a number of
empirical judgments. We presuppose, for instance, that the various characters in the
right-most column have been correctly identified, that the first is a '9,' the second a '6,'
etc. We also presuppose that all the characters in the column have been taken into
account and that no others have mistakenly been figured in. We presuppose further that
the sum of the numbers expressed by these characters has been correctly expressed as a
numeral string (e. g., as '1ST, that this numeral string has been dealt with properly
7 Note that the familiar calculative procedures presuppose that we already know certain arithmeti-
cal judgments - e. g., that nine and six are fifteen - to be true. See section III for further
discussion of this point.
Comtrllction of Arithmetical Concepts 25
(e. g., we have written down the '5' and carried the' 1 '), and so on. It is possible, of
course, for any of these judgments to be erroneous. I may have mistakenly identified
the second character in the column as a '6' when in fact it is an '8,' I may have
accidentally skipped a character, I may have 'carried' improperly, and so on. It is
relatively easy to avoid making errors of this sort, however. Indeed, one reason we have
the calculative procedures we do is that they make it easy for us to avoid making such
errors, and easy to detect them when we do. More importantly, while it is obvious that
the empirical judgments we presuppose may turn out to be false, this does not imply
that calculation may sometimes yield the wrong answers, and hence that we cannot base
universal and necessary judgments upon it. The point is rather that we may sometimes
go wrong in thinking that we have performed the calculation that we sought to
perform.
This last point serves to show how we can remove at least one source of the
puzzlement noted earlier. It would indeed be paradoxical to suppose that we can base a
priori arithmetical judgments on the observed outcomes of activities performed on
paper or 'in our heads' if the empirical judgments that reflect the observations in
question served directly as evidence for the arithmetical judgment that we make.
Obviously, however, this is not the case. In basing an arithmetical judgment on the
noted outcome of a calculation, I do presuppose the truth of several empirical
judgments. The role these empirical judgments play, however, is simply that of
supporting my judgment that I have performed the activity correctly and that the
numeral string that has been generated - '165,' say - is therefore the outcome of the
calculation in question. It is this latter judgment, not the empirical judgments them-
selves, which supports the arithmetical judgment that we go on to make.
With this point clarified we may begin to wonder about the connection between the
calculation and the arithmetical judgment that it is supposed to support. After all, even
though we have mastered procedure for doing sums, so that we can calculate accurately
and can reliably identify the activities we perform as proper executions of the activity of
calculation, we may still be quite in the dark as to why this procedure should yield
correct answers. Once again, though now in a somewhat different way, the appearance
of brute facticity may creep in, leading us to wonder how we can infer, from the fact
that the outcome of the calculation is '165,' that the sum in question is one hundred
sixty-five.
This appearance persists only so long as we fail to understand the algebraic principles
which underlie our calculative procedure. The fact that we use the Arabic numerals -
the ten characters '0' through '9' - is of course quite arbitrary. It is also quite
unimportant, however, since any ten distinguishable characters will do just as well.
Indeed, we might just as well have chosen a base of two, four, or thirteen, and an
'alphabet' of a corresponding number of characters. What is important is only that we
should have a certain number - call it i-of characters, and that we should use them to
represent the first i integers. For what underlies the addition algorithm is simply the
algebraic fact for any integer i 2: 2, any non-negative integer n can be expressed as the
sum of multiples of powers of 1. More precisely, for any integer i 2: 2 and any non-
26 J. Michael Young
negative integer n there is an integer k such that n = ao(i)O + adi)! + a2(i)2 + ... +
ak(il, where ao, al> ... , ak are all integers such that 0 :s aj < i. What we normally do, of
course, is to let i be ten. Each of the coefficients aj is then between zero and nine.
Making use of the familiar Arabic numerals to represent the numbers zero through
nine, we then express each number n by writing down a string of such numerals,
beginning at the right with the numeral which expresses the coefficient ao, then moving
leftward and writing down the numerals which express the various coefficients at. a2,
and so on through ak. The number n is expressed, that is, as the numeral string 'ak ...
a2ataO.' (One hundred sixty-five, for example, is 5(10) + 6(10)1 + 1(10)2 and is
therefore expressed symbolically by the numeral string '165.') The idea, obviously, is
that each digit in the normal representation of a number represents the corresponding
coefficient of a power of ten in the standard or normal polynomial expansion of that
number, i. e., its expansion where i = 10.
The addition algorithm then depends upon further algebraic facts. If we have two
numbers, expressed in normal form, n = ao(10)0 + ... + ak(10Y and m = b
o
(10)0 + ...
+ b
k
(10)k (assuming, for simplicity'S sake, that both numbers have k terms in their
normal polynomial expansions), then the sum of these two numbers, p, is simply the
result of adding these two polynomials. Grouping the coefficients, p = (ao + bo) (10) +
... + (ak + h) (lot Any of these coefficients may of course be greater than nine, and
the resultant polynominal may therefore fail to be in normal form. It is possible,
however, to specify a procedure by which the resultant polynomial may be transformed
into one that does possess normal form, so that p = co(10)0 + ... + c
q
(10)q, where q ~
k, and where each coefficient Cj is between zero and nine. If ao + b
o
is nine or less, then
Co = ao + boo If ao + b
o
is greater than nine, however, then it can be identified with a
normal polynomial, say d
o
(10)0 + d
l
(10)1. In that case, Co = do. To determine CI we then
take al + bl> adding to it d
l
where appropriate. The addition of d
t
is of course what is
reflected in the procedure of 'carrying' digits from the units' column to the tens'
column, a procedure so familiar that we scarcely ever stop to think about what we are
doing when we perform it, or why. If at + b
l
+ d
l
is between zero and nine, then CI =
at + b
l
+ d
t
If it is greater than nine, we simply repeat the procedure used in
determing Co. Continued application of these procedures will eventually serve to fix all
the coefficients Cj' and thus to give us a normal polynomial expansion for the sum of n
and m
8

The importance of these considerations is readily apparent. When we use calculation
to ground an arithmetical judgment, we must suppose not only that the calculative
procedure has been correctly executed and that the numeral string generated is
therefore the outcome of the calculation, but also that the number represented by this
numeral string is necessarily the sum of seventy-nine and eighty-six. This supposition
rests on the general supposition that the calculative procedures always yield correct
8 In the example we have been considering, 79 = 9(10) + 7(10)1 and 86 = 6(10) + 8(10)1, so that
79 + 86 = (9 + 6) (10) + (7 + 8) (10)1. Using the procedure indicated, we convert this latter
expression to 5(10) + 6(10)1 + 1(10Y, which is then expressed by the numeral string '165'.
Comtruction of Arithmetical Concepts 27
answers. Now someone who makes this general supposition may do so with any of a
number of degrees of understanding. Toward one extreme, a person might simply not
comprehend the principles on which the addition algorithm is based and hence have to
take it largely on faith that calculation works, much as one takes it on faith that the
sentence patterns learned in an elementary foreign language class will actually yield
grammatical sentences. Toward the other extreme, one might thoroughly understand
the algebraic principles iust sketched and hence understand that the calculative proce-
dures must yield a unique correct answer. To a person in the former position,
calculation will seem a quasi-mechanical procedure that somehow yields answers which
he believes, and can sometimes verify, to be correct. Believing that the procedures
work, he may also believe that seventy-nine and eighty-six are one hundred sixty-five,
always and necessarily. He can hardly be said to know this, however. For someone in
the latter position, by contrast, calculation bears no aura of mystery. Such a person can
therefore use calculation as a basis for making arithmetical judgments. The judgments
that he makes can be a priori, moreover, and he can reasonably claim to know what
these judgments assert, not merely to believe it.
With this discussion of calculation in mind, we can profitably return to Kant's
general thesis that mathematical knowledge rests on the construction of concepts,
reviewing some of the points that initially seemed problematic.
The most obvious difficulty was Kant's insistence that we can ground a priori
judgments on the intuited particulars by which we construct mathematical concepts -
that such a particular can exhibit or display the corresponding concept 'without
impairing its universality.' What makes this possible, he argues, is that although the
particular is an object of empirical intuition, in dealing with it we 'consider only the act
whereby we construct the concept, and abstract from the many determinations' which
the particular happens accidentally to exhibit (A 714/B 742). Initially, this explanation
seemed rather mysterious. We can now see, however, that at least in a case of the sort
we have dealt with, where the intuited particulars display the concept symbolically,
Kant's point is neither mysterious nor implausible. In calculating a sum we deal with
intuited particulars, the numeral strings we perceive or imagine, and we perform a
particular act on and with them. This act is governed, however, by universal rules or
procedures. We begin by expressing the addends symbolically, generating the
appropriate numeral strings according to universal rules (base ten, Arabic numerals,
etc.). We then generate a further numeral string, again following universal rules or
procedures (the famili,lr addition algorithm). One of the reasons we can take the
generated numeral string as expressing the sum of the addends is just that we can
identify it as having been generated in accordance with these rules. In doing so, we
identify the outcome of this particular activity as the outcome that would have to be
produced whenever the governing rules or procedures are followed. We identify it, that
is to say, as the outcome of the calculation.
Reflection on calculation serves to illuminate a second point as well. One important
thing about symbolic construction, as just noted, is that it is governed by universal
rules or procedures. Another important thing, as noted in section I, is that these rules,
28 J. Michael Young
which Kant refers to as the 'universal conditions of construction,' must be distinct from
the concepts whose construction they govern. Otherwise the exhibition or display of
the concept in an intuited particular would be nugatory, and the judgments of
mathematics would be analytic.
Our discussion of calculation serves to indicate what such universal rules may be like
and how they may differ from the concepts they enable us to construct. In calculating a
sum we make use of the fact that each natural number can be identified as a unique
polynomial, and more particularly, as a sum of multiples of powers of ten. We make
use, furthermore, of the fact that each of the numbers zero through nine can be
represented symbolically by a particular character (the Arabic numerals) and that larger
numbers can be represented by a string of such characters, each character representing
the corresponding coefficient in the normal polynomial with which the number has
been identified. The rules that specify how numbers are to be thus represented, as well
as the rules that specify how to use the symbolism to calculate sums, differences, etc.,
constitute what Kant calls 'universal conditions of construction.' It should be evident
that these rules differ in the requisite way from the arithmetical concepts they enable us
to construct. One might well command the concept of number, and in particular the
concept of seventy-nine, without being able to represent the numbers symbolically. In
particular, one need not be familiar with the procedures according to which seventy-
nine would be represented as '79.' It should also be evident, moreover, that the familiar
procedures for symbolically constructing numerical concepts are not the only such
procedures possible. Numerical concepts can be constructed in alternative ways (e. g.,
using the binary system), and there is also the possibility of employing symbolic
constructions in disciplines other than arithmetic.
A third point, also illuminated by our discussion of calculation, has to do with the
fact that construction, on Kant's view, requires the exhibition or display of a concept in
sensible intuition. Considerable stress has been placed on the point that symbolic
construction is governed by universal procedures or rules and that a particular
performance of a calculation can serve to ground the corresponding arithmetical
judgment only because it is so governed - because it is merely a performance of the
calculation, differing in no relevant way from any other performance of the same
calculation. Given this stress, one might well wonder just how important the particular
symbols that we perceive or imagine, and the particular activity that we perform, really
are.
In one respect, of course, they are quite unimportant, for in grounding an arithmeti-
cal judgment on calculation we systematically exclude anything that may be accidental
to the particular performance of the calculation. Kant's point, however, would
presumably be that we have to ground our judgment on some performance of the
calculation, and hence that we have to appeal to some set of intuited symbols and some
particular activity. The universal rules guarantee that calculation will yield a unique
outcome, and that this outcome will represent the desired sum. The rules are, however,
universal. To determine that the unique outcome in the case of particular addends is this
Construction of Arithmeti..:al Concepts 29
numeral string we need actually to perform the calculation, and thus to attend to
particular symbols, to do something with them\ etc.
Unfortunately, as I noted earlier, Kant himself does not discuss calculation. I hope to
have shown, however, that this activity can be viewed as an example of what he would
call the construction - and in particular, of the symbolic construction - of concepts.
Since it seems clear that we can base arithmetical judgments upon calculation, I hope to
have shown too that Kant is right in thinking that in elementary arithmetic at least, we
can ground a priori judgments upon a construction. In his own discussions of
arithmetic, however, Kant himself focuses on the ostensive construction of concepts.
His claim, moreover, is not just that we can ground arithmetical judgments on such
constructions, but that we must. I will consider this claim in section IV. First, however,
I want to show how these reflections on symbolic construction can help to elucidate the
notion of ostensive construction.
III
In discussing calculation, I sometimes spoke as though it were a quasi-mechanical
procedure in which the presence of certain symbols is noted, other symbols are written
down, etc. - as though it were merely a procedure carried out in accordance with
certain rules, involving no judgments except those required for the application of these
rules and for the recognition that they have been properly applied. Much of what we do
in calculating can be described in just this way, I think, especially when the calculations
are long or complicated. When we perform a calculation, however, we also have to
make various arithmetical judgments along the way. In calculating the sum of seventy-
nine and eighty-six, we must judge that nine and six are fifteen (as well as that fifteen
can be expressed symbolically as '15,' which then leads to our writing down a'S,'
carrying a '1,' and so on). Looking at the matter in this way, in fact, we see that our
procedure for calculating sums is in part just a device which enables us to make a rather
difficult judgment (identifying the sum of rather large num bers) by making an ordered
series of much easier judgments (identifying the sums of much smaller numbers,
namely, those that represent the coefficients in the normal polynomial expansion). By
exhibiting the addends in the familiar way and writing them one atop the other we
provide ourselves with a means for systematically ordering the easier judgments that
need to be made and for recording their outcomes. This point is reflected pedagogically
in the fact that we first get children to learn to make these easier judgments; only
afterward do we teach them to use these easier judgments in calculation.
9 This is not to sav that we must actually perform the calculation each time we are presented with a
problem. Having performed a particular calculation often we may simply remember its
outcome, for example. The point remains that to show that a certain numeral string is in fact the
outcome of the calculation we need to produce a proper performance of the calculation.
30 J. Michael Young
The question quite naturally arises: How do we know these easier judgments to be
true? It would be possible for us to ground them in turn upon calculation. We cannot
use the addition algorithm for the usual system of base ten to calculate the sum of nine
and six, of course, since this is one of the judgments whose truth we presuppose in
using that algorithm. But we could make use of the binary system to calculate this sum.
Ultimately, however, the use of any calculative procedure for the making of certain
arithmetical judgments presupposes that other, easier arithmetical judgments already
have been made. And of course the judgments that we normally presuppose are those
having to do with sums of relatively small numbers. These, it seems clear, are the
judgments Kant has in mind in his familiar remarks on arithmetic.
Taking as his example the judgment that seven and five are twelve
lO
, Kant argues that
such judgments are synthetic, offering the following suggestion as to how they are
grounded:
The concept of 12 is by no means already thought in merely thinking this union of 7 and 5; and
I may analyse my concept of such a possible sum as long as I please, still I shall never find the 12 in
it. We have to go outside these concepts, and call in the aid of the intuition which corresponds to
one of them, our five fingers, for instance, or, as Segner does in his Arithmetic, five points, adding
to the concept of 7, unit by unit, the five given in intuition. For starting with the number 7, and
for the concept of 5 calling in the aid of the fingers of my hand as intuition, I now add one by one
to the number 7 the units which I previously took together to form the number 5, and with the aid
of that figure [the hand] see the number 12 come into being (B 15-6).
Kant's suggestion may at first seem quite implausible, since he appears to say that
mathematical judgments can be grounded on our experience with the counting of
fingers, dots, and the like, and that seems flatly impossible if such judgments are to be a
priori. We are now in a position, however, to dispel this appearance of implausibility.
After all, essentially the same difficulty has already been met and resolved in connection
with the symbolic construction of concepts. It seemed initially implausible to say that
we can ground an arithmetical judgment on the observed outcome of an activity that we
perform with characters drawn on a piece of paper. The appearance of implausibility
was removed, however, by a more accurate characterization of what goes on in such
cases. We recognized that calculation is governed by universal rules which guarantee a
unique outcome and that that outcome necessarily represents the sum of the addends. It
is not the case, therefore, that we merely observe that our activity has produced a
certain numeral string. Rather, we identify this numeral string as having been produced
in accordance with the addition algorithm, and hence as being the outcome of the
calculation. Only under this supposition can we use our performance of the calculation
to ground an a priori judgment.
Essentially the same point can be made concerning what Kant would call an ostensive
construction. In judging that seven and five are twelve I might draw a collection of
10 Kant's choice of his example is motivated by serious considerations, as should now be evident.
It is important that the numbers be relatively large, so that we cannot readily 'see' how many are
in the conjoint collection. Kant stresses this point at B 16. It is also important, however, that the
numbers be relatively small, so that we not be able to determine the sum by calculation.
seven strokes, set alongside it a collection of five other strokes, and then proceed to
enumerate the strokes in the conjoint collection, noting that the first stroke from the
latter collection brings the total number of strokes to eight, the second to nine, and so
on. I ground the arithmetical judgment on the noted outcome of this procedure. It
would be a mistake, however, to say that I base my judgmt:nt merely on an observation
- the observation, say, that I find myself saying 'twelve' as I finish. For the situation
here is analogous to that in calculation. In both cases we have activities which are
governed by certain universal rules, so that what I do on a particular occasion counts as
a performance of the activity in question only insofar as it accords with the relevant
rules. In neither case, accordingly, do we merely observe that a certain outcome has
eventuated. Rather, we observe that this outcome has eventuated from a proper
performance, and thus that it is the outcome of the activity in question - the calculation
in the one case, the enumeration in the other.
The point can be strengthened by consideration of tht: mistakes that can occur in
both activities, since this will clarify the role played by the particular intuited objects
and our judgments about them. In calculating a sum I must identify the characters I
perceive or imagine as tokens of the ten Arabic numerals. I must also determine that I
have taken into account all the characters in the first column, that I have not
accidentally reckoned in any other characters, that I have written the proper character
at the bottom of the first column, etc. At any point I may of course make a mistake.
This does not show that the arithmetical judgment that I finally make is contingent and
hence empirical, however. It only shows that I may make mistakes about such
judgments, and in particular that I may do so because I have mistakenly supposed that
the numeral string I have generated is the outcome of the calculation.
The same point can be made concerning the ostensive construction of sums and the
activity of enumeration. In grounding my judgment that seven plus five is twelve on the
observed outcome of my enumerating a collection of strokes drawn on paper, I do of
course presuppose the truth of several empirical judgments. I presuppose, for instance,
that the conjoint collection was correctly produced, with no extra strokes being drawn
and none being left out. I also suppose that in enumerating the conjoint collection I
have counted all of the strokes, that I have not counted any of them twice, that each of
the things I took for a stroke really was one (and not, say, a flaw in the paper), etc. I
may of course be wrong on any of these points. This does not show that the judgment
that I ground on the construction is contingent and hence empirical, however, but only
that I am not infallible. The point here, as in the case of symbolic construction, is that I
do not ground the a priori judgment merely on the observed outcome of the activity I
perform with intuited particulars. I do so only under the supposition that the observed
outcome is the outcome of the constructive acitivity.
Both in symbolic and in ostensive construction, then" there are what Kant calls
'universal conditions of construction.' We produce the intuited particulars - the
numeral strings in one case, the strokes or dots in the order - in accordance with certain
universal procedures. We also deal with these particulars merely as instances of certain
universal kinds - merely as numeral strings, or merely as units, ignoring everything else
32 J. Michael Young
about them as irrelevant. The activity that we perform on and with these particulars is
governed, moreover, by universal rules; indeed, it counts as a performance of the
activity in question - the calculation or the enumeration - only if it is done in
accordance with these rules. It is just for these reasons that we can be sure that the result
reached in the particular case is the same one that would be reached in any case - that
what we have reached is the outcome of the calculation, or or the result of the
enumeration. This is what Kant has in mind, I take it, when he says that in dealing with
the particulars that serve to construct a concept we 'consider only the act whereby we
construct the concept, and abstract from the many determinations' incidental to those
particulars. As he also puts it, the intuited particulars and the activity we perform on
and with them are 'determined by certain universal conditions of construction .. .'
(A 714/B 742).
Admittedly, the universal procedures that govern the ostensive construction of sums
are quite different from those that govern symbolic construction. The difference
between them may make the two types of construction seem much less similar than I
have claimed. In the case of ostensive construction, one might get the impression that
there is something approaching mere observation - that we simply discover, as a brute
fact, that the conjoining of a collection of seven things with a collection of five yields a
collection of twelve. And one might therefore continue to wonder whether an
arithmetical judgment based on ostensive construction could be anything but empirical.
In the case of symbolic construction, on the other hand, one might get the impression
that the particular symbols we jot down are not things that we in any interesting sense
'observe' or 'notice,' but only mere reminders of something we have already thought
out. One might therefore wonder whether the a priori judgments we make are in any
interesting sense grounded upon the particulars we intuit.
Both impressions are erroneous. It is true that in calculation the particulars we deal
with are only instances of symbolic types. The types they instantiate are themselves
elements within a symbolic system whose structure we understand quite well, a system
which we have created in order to utilize a good deal that we already know concerning
the concepts to be constructed. This knowledge, as well as our understanding of the
general features of the symbolic system, makes it possible for us to ground a priori
judgments on the symbolic constructions we produce. The point nonetheless remains,
as we saw in section II, that to ground arithmetical judgments on calculation we need to
perform the calculation, to execute a particular activity on and with particular numeral
strings. It is one thing to know, for instance, that calculation of the sum of seventy-nine
and eighty-six will yield a unique numeral string representing the sum of these two
numbers. It is another thing to know what that outcome is. For this, we need actually
to perform the calculation in question, attending to the particular characters on the
paper before us and noting the particular outcome of our procedure. (See n. 9.)
In the case of ostensive construction, on the other hand, it is not accurate to say that
we merely discover, as a brute fact, what the number of units in the combined
collection happens to be. For the ostensive construction of a sum, no less than the
symbolic construction, is governed - indeed, defined - by universal rules or proce-
dures. In both cases, these rules serve to specify how we are to construct the concept of
a sum and how we are to determine what that sum is. In both cases, again, we can have
general knowledge about the constructive activities, knowledge which justifies our
confidence that there can be no relevant difference between one performance of a
constructive activity and any other, and which therefore makes it possible for us to
ground a priori judgments on the outcome of a particular performance of the construc-
tive activityll. Once we understand the procedures for calculating sums, for instance,
we can see that calculation has to yield a unique outcome, and hence that it is possible
for one performance of a certain calculation to yield an outcome different from that of
any other, though it is possible that we may think we have performed a certain
calculation when in fact we haven't. Similarly, once we understand the procedures
involved in ostensively constructing sums and enumerating the units in the conjoint
collection we can also see that this procedure has to yield a unique result, though here
too we may be mistaken in thinking that we have properly produced the conjoint
collection and enumerated its members.
Both in symbolic and in ostensive constructions, then, the role played by the intuited
particulars is important. It is not enough to command the universal rules governing
calculation or enumeration. If one wants to know what the enumeration or calculation
of a sum will yield one must actually perform the activity in question, dealing with
perceived or imagined particulars. At the same time, however, what one does on and
with these particulars is governed entirely by universal rules guaranteeing a unique
outcome, an outcome which cannot differ from one case to the next. Recognition of
these two points removes many of the puzzles concerning the notion of construction.
IV
I have sought to elucidate Kant's notion of construction, and in particular to show
how we can ground a priori judgments on the observed outcome of particular activities
performed on various things - strings of numerals, collections of strokes, etc. - that we
perceive or imagine. While I believe that my approach sheds light on Kant's notion, it
also raises several questions.
II Kant would thus insist that all our arithmetical knowledge - both that concerning particular
sums, products, etc., and that which is general (e. g., that addition is both commutative and
associative) - has to be grounded on the procedures involved in ostensively constructing and
enumerating arithmetical concepts. Kant would maintain, in a word, that our arithmetical
knowledge must rest on evidence. In this respect he to some extent the Dutch
intuitionists of this century. A. Heyting, for instance, in a dialogue he has written, has the
intuitionist spokesman reply to one of his critics thus (Intuitionism, Amsterdam: North-
Holland Publ. Co., 1966, pp.13-4): 'While you think in terms of axioms and deductions, we
think in terms of evidence; that makes all the difference. I do not accept any axioms which I
might reject if I chose to do so. The notion of natural numbers does not come to us as a bare
notion, but from the beginning it is clothed in properties which I can detect by simply
examination.' There are also deep differences, however. See n. 15 below.
34 J. Michael Young
To begin with, one might question my interpretation of the notion of symbolic
construction and hence my claim that calculation affords us an instance of such
construction. Kant himself mentions only algebra as an area in which symbolic
construction plays an important role. One might argue, however, that what is
significant about algebra is that in doing it we perform operations on expressions
containing free variables, symbols which stand indefinitely for any number whatsoever.
Focusing on the important role played by such variables, and stressing the fact that they
stand for particular numbers rather than for general predicates, one might develop an
interpretation of Kant's notion of construction quite different from the one I have
adopted. The important point about algebra, one might argue, is not that it involves the
grounding of judgments on something sensibly present to us, but rather that it involves
the use of arguments, an essential feature of which is that they involve the representa-
tion of particular objects by means of free variables, i. e., by means of variables which
are allowed to stand indefinitely for any of a certain class of objects, so that what is
proved must hold for all objects of that class. One might argue, indeed, that this is the
key to understanding Kant's point about mathematics generally. When he says that
mathematical knowledge rests on the exhibition of concepts in intuition, his point, one
might contend, is not that mathematical judgments have to be grounded on something
sensibly present to us, but rather that they have to be grounded on arguments which
involve, in an essential way, the representation of particular objects. In support of such
an interpretation, one might point out that Kant himself says that the essential feature
of intuitions is not that they should be sensible, but only that they should be singular
representations (A 19/B 33)12.
I do not deny the importance of the point that motivates an interpretation of this
sort. To read Kant in this way is to view him as having dimly recognized the
importance of those features of arguments which later came to be dealt with in
quantification theory, especially those covered by the rules of existential instantiation
and universal generalization. To read Kant in this way is nonetheless to reconstruct his
view, not to interpret it. The problem with such a reconstruction is not just that it is
anachronistic, but that by shifting our attention to points Kant did not make it may
hinder us from appreciating important points he did make.
In his own comments on algebra, Kant begins by saying that
mathematics does not only construct magnitudes (quanta) as in geometry; it also constructs
magnitude as such (quantitas), as in algebra. In this it abstracts from the properties of the object
that is to be thought in terms of such a concept of magnitude (A 717 IB 745).
12 An interpretation along these lines was suggested by E. W. Beth (Ober Lockes "allgemeines
Dreieck", Kant-Studien, 48 (1956-7), pp. 361-80) and has been developed i ~ considerable detail
by J. Hintikka (see, for example, Kant on the Mathematical Method, Monist, vol. 51, 1967, as
well as An Analysis of Analyticity, Are Logical Truths Tautologies?, Kant Vindicated, and Kant
and the Tradition of Analysis, in P. Weingartner, ed., Deskription, Analytizitat und Existenz,
Salzburg and Munich, 1966, and Kant's Concept of Intuition, in T. Penelhum & J. H.
Macintosh, ed., The First Critique: Reflections on Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason', Belmont,
California: Wadsworth, 1969). - For more detailed criticism of the Beth-Hintikka interpreta-
tion see Parsons, Kant's Philosophy of Arithmetic, loc. cit.
His point, it seems clear, is that in algebra we abstract from the differences between,
say, the magnitude of a line segment and the magnitude of an area or a volume, and
consider simply magnitude in the abstract. In doing so, our aim is to make universal
judgments about magnitudes, and in particular about magnitudes insofar as they can be
generated by the operations of addition, multiplication, and so forth. We seek to make
universal judgments about sums, products, sums of products, products of sums of
products, etc. In doing this, we find it natural, both in expressing the judgments we
make and in establishing the truth of these judgments, to make use of free variables.
What Kant calls attention to, however, is not the importance of these variables but
rather that of the devices by which sums, products, quotients, roots, etc., are
symbolically displayed. I quote the remainder of the passage in full:
[AlgebraJ13 then chooses a certain notation for all constructions of magnitude as such (num-
bers), that is, for addition, subtraction, extraction of roots, etc. Once it has adopted a notation for
the general concept of magnitudes so far as their different relations are concerned, it exhibits in
intuition, in accordance with certain universal rules, all the various operations through which the
magnitudes are produced and modified. When, for instance, one magnitude is to be divided by
another, their symbols are placed together, in accordance with the sign for division, and similarly
in the other processes; and thus in algebra by means of a symbolic construction, just as in
geometry by means of an ostensive construction (the geometrical construction of the objects
themselves), we succeed in arriving at results which discursive knowledge could never have
reached by mere concepts (A 717/B 745).
The same emphasis is present in the other important passage from the Critique that
deals with algebra
14
:
Even the procedure of the algebraists with their equations, from which the correct answer,
together with its proof, is deduced by reduction, is not a geometrical construction, to be sure, but
it is a symbolic (charakteristisch) construction. In this construction one sets forth concepts, above
all of the relation of quantities, by means of signs in intuition; and this construction, quite apart
from its heuristic advantages, secures all inferences against error by setting each of them before our
eyes (A 734/B 762).
In both passages, Kant's emphasis is on the fact that we possess symbols for the
operations of addition, multiplication, extraction of roots, etc., as well as conventions
for using these symbols to represent quantities insofar a ~ they can be generated by
means of these operations. He presumably would not deny the importance of the fact
that we use these symbols and conventions in conjunction with free variables. His
principal claim, however, is that it is only by the use of these symbols and conventions
that we can come to know the truth of the corresponding algebraic judgments. If asked,
for instance, whether the difference between a given quantity multiplied by itself and a
second quantity multiplied by itself, divided by the difference between the two
quantities, is the same as the sum of the two quantities, we are hard pressed even to
understand the question, much less to answer it. Presented with the corresponding
13 Kant's term for algebra is Buchstabenrechnung, literally, 'letter reckoning' or 'letter calculation.'
14 The translation given here differs from that of Kemp Smith, though it follows the alternative
route that he suggests in a footnote.
36 J. Michael Young
2 2
equation, however (xx = ~ = x + y), we can use familiar techniques to show, rather
easily, the truth of the judgment in question. Kant's point about algebra, then, is
essentially the same as that which I made concerning calculation. Having at our disposal
a symbolic system, i. e., a set of universal procedures for displaying concepts of a
certain sort, we can symbolically represent a concept by means of characters that we
perceive or imagine. Then, by performing various activities on and with these charac-
ters, we can establish the truth of various a priori judgments.
Kant's view, of course, is not just that we can ground algebraic judgments on
symbolic constructions, but that we must. The question naturally arises whether, on
my interpretation of construction, there would be good reasons for him to hold this
view. I suspect that there would be. This is, however, a difficult question. Discussion
of it will be necessarily brief and is best postponed, in any case, until the parallel
question concerning arithmetical judgments has been considered. For Kant also holds
not only that we can ground arithmetical judgments on constructions, but more
strongly, that we must. In trying to show that we can do so, I have obviously not
contradicted the stronger thesis; indeed, I have removed one of the objections tradi-
tionally pressed against that thesis. One might nonetheless wonder whether, on the
account I have given, Kant would have good reasons for maintaining his strong thesis. I
believe that he would, and I will now indicate what those reasons are. I will then return,
at the end of this section, to comment briefly on his view regarding algebra.
While we can ground arithmetical judgments on symbolic constructions, as we do in
calculation, there is plainly no necessity for us to do so. When determining the sums of
large numbers we find the procedure of calculation easier and more reliable than that of
ostensive construction and enumeration. We can always dispense with it, however, and
use the latter procedure instead. Indeed, Kant's view is presumably that this procedure
of ostensive construction and enumeration provides what we might call the primary
ground for arithmetical judgments, and that calculation constitutes only a secondary or
derivative ground, one we are justified in appealing to only because we can satisfy
ourselves that the results yielded by calculation necessarily coincide with those that
would be yielded by ostensive construction and enumeration. It is the relation of
arithmetical judgments to ostensive construction which must therefore be considered.
It should be noted, to begin with, that Kant apparently does not think of arithmetical
judgments as judgments about the numbers, construed as individual objects
'5
For the
notion of an individual object is inextricably tied to intuition, on Kant's view, and
15 On this point I differ with Parsons (Kant's Philosophy of Arithmetic). With the possible
exception of one somewhat obscure passage (A 164/B 205), I see no evidence that Kant thought
of arithmetical judgments as judgments about the numbers, construed as individual objects. The
reading I propose, on the other hand, seems to make easy sense of Kant's discussions both of the
syntheticity of such judgments and of the ostensive construction of arithmetical concepts. If I
am right on this matter, then Kant differs in deep ways from many of the Dutch intuitionists.
For while insisting on the importance of evidence (see n. 11), Kant does not think that we can
have intuition of the natural numbers themselves, but only of collections of things of this or that
number of members.
intuition is always of things in space and time. We have no intuition of numbers as
individual objects, accordingly, and hence no way of lending significance to any
judgment which would treat them as such. We may express the arithmetical judgment
by writing '7 + 5 = 12,' but the judgment has to be understood as asserting, not that a
certain relation obtains among three objects, but rather that any collection of seven
things, conjoined with a distinct collection of five things, is a collection of twelve
things. In maintaining that this judgment is synthetic, Kant thus means to claim that it
is not contained in the concept of such a conjoint collection that it should be a
collection of twelve things. In maintaining that we can only ground the judgment by
ostensive construction, he means to claim that our knowledge can finally be grounded
only by our producing a collection of seven plus five things and discovering, through
enumeration, that it numbers twelve
16
The universal procedures involved in such
construction and enumeration, it should be noted, constitute what Kant refers to as the
schemata of arithmetical concepts. For a schema is defined precisely as the 'representa-
tion of a universal procedure (Verfahren) of imagination in providing an image (Bild)
for a concept ... ' (A 140/B 179-80). Full discussion of these matters would therefore
require consideration of Kant's views concerning imagination, and in particular con-
cerning productive imagination, since the schema is said to be the 'monogram' of a
priori or productive imagination (A 142/B 181).
Kant's thesis regarding arithmetical judgments rests on his view of arithmetical
concepts and of their relation to the universal procedures of schemata by whLch we
apply them to intuited objects. He holds that we have a pure concept of quantity. He
means, I take it, both that we have a pure or intellectual concept of quantity in general
(the concept of a collection of things) and also that we have concepts of determinate
quantities (concepts of collections of this or that many things). He also holds, however,
that the pure concepts are in themselves rather meager things. In the first place, like all
pure concepts they gain meaning or significance for us only through their correspond-
ing schemata (A 137/B 176 ff.). If, that is, we are to wield these concepts - to be capable
of identifying a collection as a collection of many things, and in particular of n or of n +
10 Kant would not deny the obvious fact that we can identify a collection as a collection of seven
things, or even of seven plus five or of twelve things, withom actually running through them
one after another. The practiced counter can identify a collection of seven things without having
to enumerate its members, just as the practiced carpenter can see that a post is plumb, or as the
practiced violinist can hear that his instrument is properly tuned. What the carpenter 'sees,'
however, is that the post would prove to be plumb if tested with a plumb line, and what the
violinist 'hears' is that the strings would prove to be in tune if compared to a proper standard.
Likewise, what the practiced counter 'sees' is that the collection in question would prove to have
seven members if enumerated. Though he may not need to engage in the enumeration, that
procedure is still the standard by which the number of members in a collection must finally be
judged.
A related point may also be mentioned. Kant would obviously grant that if asked for the sum of
seven and five we can typically respond without having to produce an ostensive construction
and to enumerate the number of members in the collection. The point is simply that this is what
it would take to show that seven and five are twelve.
38 J. Michael Young
m things - then besides possessing the concept we must also be able to execute a certain
universal procedure, viz., that of running through the various things that make up the
collection one after another, thereby fixing their number. This procedure, which Kant
describes as 'the successive addition of unit to homogeneous unit' (A 142/B 182) and
which I have referred to as enumeration, provides the schema for arithmetical concepts.
It is what makes possible the application of such concepts to intuited things, whether
things we simply happen across or things we provide ourselves with for the purpose of
ostensively constructing such concepts. In the second place, moreover, Kant also holds
that the pure arithmetical concepts, by themselves, are too meager to provide the
grounding for arithmetical judgments. We may have the concept of a collection of seven
plus five things, but to know that this is a collection of twelve things we must both
command and exercise the ability to identify a collection of seven plus five things and to
enumerate its members. (Note that the universal procedure is distinct from any
particular execution of it, and that it is the universal procedure, or the universal
representation of the procedure, which is the schema. The execution of the procedure
might be referred to as an act of schematism. Cf. A 140/B 179-80.)
It is clear why Kant should distinguish between arithmetical concepts and the
activities that we perform in schematising those concepts. Concepts, obviously, are not
activities. It may not be so clear why Kant should distinguish between arithmetical
concepts and the univeral representations of the procedures we follow in applying those
concepts, between the concepts and their schemata. We would be reluctant, after all, to
characterize someone as commanding arithmetical concepts who had not mastered the
universal procedures for applying those concepts. The point, moreover, is not simply
that we would lack evidence for ascribing command of the concepts. It is rather that it is
not clear just what we would be ascribing. For once we accept Kant's point that
arithmetical concepts have no meaning or significance for us except by way of the
corresponding procedures or schemata, it becomes difficult to see just how the concepts
can differ from their schemata.
Kant's view seems nonetheless to be that there is such a distinction. He uses the term
'quantity' (Grofte) in speaking of the concept and 'number' (Zahl) in speaking of the
schema. Number (Zahl) is, he says, the 'pure schema of quantity (Grofte)' and is a
'representation which comprises the successive addition of unit to homogenous unit'
(A 142/B 182; see also A 103, where Kant distinguishes between number (Zahl) and the
concept by which we recognize number, a distinction obscured by Kemp Smith's
translation).
The remarks just quoted may occasion misunderstanding. Kant may seem to be
distinguishing between the concept of quantity in general and the representation of
determinate quantity - between the representation simply of a collection and the
representation of a collection of this or that many things. He may thus seem to be
saying that the representation of determinate quantity is necessarily tied to the
procedure for enumerating a collection of things. But to read him in this way would, I
think, be a mistake. Kant thinks it important to distinguish, in general, between the
synthesis of an intuited plurality or manifold and the bringing of this synthesis to
concepts, this latter being what gives unity to the synthesis (A 78-9/B 103-5; d. also
B 151). His point, as applied to the concept of quantity, seems to be that while the
procedure of enumeration enables us to synthesize or combine an intuited plurality and
to grasp it as a collection of, say, seven things, it does so only because it is informed by
concepts which are not themselves reducible to procedures or representations of
procedures. To identify what we intuit as a collection of seven things, we have to
proceed successively through these things. As we do so, however, we must recognize
that each thing is a unit and we must identify the various things as constituting,
together, a totality. We must recognize, further, that the procedure of enumeration, in
which we run through the various units successively and thus represent the totality as
though it had been generated by the temporal procedure of joining each thing to the
others, suffices to determine the 'how-many-ness' of that totality. (We must recognize,
that is, that in representing the totality in this way we are able to determine whether any
two collections have the same number of members, and whether one collection has one
more member than another. For if we can determine matters of these two sorts we can
order collections according to their 'how-many-ness' and we can label the number of
things in a collection by establishing equinumerosity with one of a standard series of
collections, e. g., the collection of the first n numerals.) The concepts of a unit and a
totality are explicitly identified as categories by Kant. The concept of a collection of n
things, though not a category, would presumably also be a pure concept. It is
misleading, accordingly, to translate Kant's statement that Zahl is the schema of
quantity as asserting that number is the schema of quantity, since this suggests that the
representation of determinate quantity - of a collection of this or that many things - is
not a pure concept, but is rather necessarily dependent upon the procedure of
enumeration. Kant's point is quite different. The term 'Zahl' is connected with the verb
'zdhlen, ' Kant's term for procedure of enumeration, and his point therefore is not that
we have no pure concept of determinate quantity, but that we have no way of wielding
such a concept apart from the procedure of enumeration.
The point can perhaps be further illuminated if we approach it from another
direction. Kant would presumably grant that any discursive intelligence - any intelli-
gence, that is, whose intellectual representations are always general and which depends
for its intuitions, or representations of particulars on sensible affection - can command
the concept of quantity in general, as well as the concept of a collection of this or that
many things. For us, who possess discursive intelligence and whose intuition moreover
is spatial and temporal, the ability to wield such concepts depends, according to Kant,
on our being able to run through the members of a collection one after anotht:r in time.
There is no necessity, however, so far as we can see, that every discursive intelligence
should have spatial and temporal intuition (B 145-6). There is no necessity, likewise,
that the concept of a collection of n things should have to be schematised by the
temporally successive procedure of enumeration.
With these points in mind we can profitably return to Kant's thesis concerning
arithmetical judgments. His view, as we can now more clearly see, has two parts. His
most basic claim is that arithmetical concepts are not sufficient to support arithmetical
40 J. Michael Young
judgments, and that such judgments are therefore synthetic. He also maintains what we
can now see to be a further thesis, namely, that we, with the form of intuition we
possess, can schematize arithmetical concepts by the temporally successive procedure
of enumeration, and that we can use this procedure to construct arithmetical concepts
and to ground arithmetical judgments. Indeed, he thinks apparently that it is only by
the use of this procedure that we can ground such judgments.
The reasons for his holding these views can now be made plain. Although Kant holds
that the concepts of quantity and of determinate quantity are pure concepts of the
understanding, he also holds that they are inextricably tied to intuition. The concept,
say, of a collection of seven things differs in a deep way from the concept of a collection
of red things. For in the latter case each of the things in the collection is red, while the
collection itself is not red, whereas in the former case it is the collection itself that is of
numbers seven, not the various things taken individually. The concept of seven is thus
not tied to intuition in the way in which the concept of red is. It is not the concept of a
property or determination exhibited by things in sensible intuition. Nor is it the
concept of some sensible property exhibited by the collection itself, since obviously the
collection is not a sensible object over and above the things that make it up. The
concept of such a collection is nonetheless inextricably tied to intuition. Putting it very
crudely, the sevenness of a collection is something that needs to be seen to be
understood. The sevenness, that is, and in general the how-many-ness of a collection,
resides in the fact that it comprises distinct, particular objects, and the representation of
such particular things, rather than merely of kinds of things, is always a matter of
intuition. The representation of the how-many-ness of a collection may not necessarily
involve enumeration, since intuition, so far as we can see, need not necessarily be
temporal. For us, however, it is temporal, and successive enumeration is the only
device we have for the determination of how-many-ness.
It is clear, against this backdrop, why Kant should reject the Leibnizian view that
arithmetical truths can be deduced merely from definitions of the numbers and logical
principles. The idea behind this view is that we can define the numbers using simply the
ideas of a unit and of the addition of a unit (two being defined as one plus one, three as
two plus one, and so on), and that by repeated application of these definitions we can
then prove arithmetical truths. Given that five is defined as four plus one, for instance,
and eight as seven plus one, we could argue that 7 + 5 = 7 + (4 + 1) = (7 + 1) + 4 = 8
+ 4. Following the same procedure we could then establish that 8 + 4 = 9 + 3 = 10 + 2
= 11 + 1 = 12.
One familiar objection to the Leibnizian view is that the proofs do not rest merely on
definitions, but also on the principles of commutativity and associativity. Kant would
concur with this objection, I think, though his approach would be rather different. He
would insist, in the first place, that the Leibnizian view treats the notion of definition
far too carelessly. The concept of two may be 'by definition' that of a collection of one
more than one. Mastering this definition is -not merely a matter of commanding a
discursive concept, however, much less of merely knowing a verbal definition. Since
distinct, particular things cannot be represented except in intuition, the concept of a
collection of two is necessarily that of a collection of things which are intuitably two.
For us, at least, these things must also be enumerably two. Even though our knowledge
of arithmetical truths may rest in part on definitions of arithmetical concepts, therefore,
this does not mean that it involves no reference, at least for us, to the procedure of
enumeratlon.
There is, moreover, a further point. If we consider the Leibnizian 'proof' that 7 + 5
= 12, we see that it involves a series of judgments - that 7 + 5 = 8 + 4, that 8 + 4 = 9 +
3, etc. But how do we know that 7 + 5 = 8 + 4, i. e., as Kant would see it, that a
collection of seven plus five is a collection of eight plus four? We might claim to know
'by definition' that a collection of five is a collection of four plus one. In the first place,
however, it would not even follow, merely on logical grounds, that a collection of
seven plus five is a collection of seven plus four plus one .. (If we know that something
satisfies predicates A and B, and that to satisfy B is 'by definition' to satisfy C and D, we
can infer that the thing in question satisfies A and C and D. But for something to be a
collection of seven plus five is not for it to satisfy the two predicates 'is a collection of
seven' and 'is a collection of five.' From the logical point of view, 'is a collection of
seven plus five' is a simple and not a compound predicate, and the fact that we have a
definition of 'is a collection of five' is therefore of no use to us.) In the second place,
moreover, even if we know that a collection of seven plus five things is a collection of
seven plus four plus one, it does not follow - merely on logical grounds - that it is a
collection of seven plus one plus four, a point which parallels the algebraically
formulated objection concernmg the presUppOSItIOn of commutatIVIty and
aSSOClatIVIty.
Given Kant's view of arithmetical concepts, then, it is impossible to prove that seven
and five are twelve using only definitions and logical principles. There is of course
something quite right about the Leibnizian 'proof.' To see what it is, however, we have
to think of it, Kant would argue, not as a proof but as a series of judgments .- that a
collection of seven plus five is a collection of eight plus four, and so on - each of which
rests on our use of ostensive construction and enumeration. What these various
judgments do is to record that fact, made evident through ostensive construction, that if
we begin with a collection of seven things and join to them five other things, then the
first brings the total to eight, the second to nine, and so on. This, indeed, is precisely
how Kant presents the matter at B 15-6.
Kant's claim about the need for construction may still seem questionable. Even if one
grants that the Leibnizian view is wrong and that arithmetical judgments are synthetic,
and even if one also grants the possibility of our groundi.ng arithmetical judgments on
ostensive constructions, one might continue to question the necessity of our doing so.
It is possible, after all, within the framework of the predicate calculus, to provide
definitions of the numbers and to produce proofs of arithmetical identities. Such proofs
admittedly involve non-logical postulates; on that point Leibniz was wrong and Kant
was right. But the point remains, one might argue, that the arithmetical identities can be
proved, and hence that ostensive construction is unnecessary.
42 J. Michael Young
Kant's response to this, I think, would be that the argument involves equivocation
on the central term 'proof' (as well as on 'proposition,' and hence on 'analytic' and
'synthetic'), and that what are here called 'proofs' are in effect nothing but ostensive
constructions. These points can best be approached through extension of ideas
developed in section II.
I argued in section II that Kant's notion of symbolic construction finds application
not only in algebra, which he mentions, but also in calculation. It finds further
application, though Kant was in no position to foresee this, in the use made of symbolic
'calculi' in modern logic. If we wish to determine whether a certain argument is valid,
we may do so by producing formulas, drawn from such a calculus, which represent the
logical forms of the propositions in the argument. We may then generate a sequence of
formulas, each of which either represents a premise in the argument or is derived from
earlier formulas under authorization of specified derivation rules. If a formula repre-
senting the conclusion appears in such a sequence, the argument in question may then
be judged valid. The procedures used here are of course quite different from those by
which we symbolically represent numbers and calculate their sums, as are the kinds of
questions these procedures are used to answer. The similarity should nonetheless be
evident. In the one case we symbolically construct the concept of a sum and use the
construction to determine what that sum is. In the other we symbolically construct the
concept of a certain set of premises, or of the logical forms of those premises, and use
the construction to determine whether a certain conclusion follows from them.
N ow we often refer to the symbolic construction of an argument or proof as though
it were itself an argument or proof, and to its constituent formulas as though they were
premises and conclusions. As Kant would undoubtedly insist, however, this is simply
to equivocate. The so-called 'proofs' of arithmetical identities are not proofs properly
so called. At the very best, they could only qualify as symbolic constructions of proofs.
Even this, however, would be an improper characterization in the case at hand. For
what makes such 'proofs' work is the peculiar character of the 'definitions' and the
'postulates' on which they rest. The 'definitions' do not explicate arithmetical concepts.
Rather, they provide us with a symbol, one which serves to represent an arithmetical
concept for the very simple reason that it instantiates, or ostensively constructs,that
concept. The 'postulates,' in turn, simply specify procedures for transforming symbols
for sums of numbers into symbols for numbers. The 'proofs' work precisely because
these procedures are essentially identical to those involved in ostensive construction
and enumeration. We begin, for example, by symbolizing seven as the seventh
successor of zero (or as the successor of six, which is in turn the successor of five,
which ... ) and five as the fifth successor of zero, e. g., by symbolizing seven as '0'
followed by seven stroke marks and five as '0' followed by five stroke marks.
Proceeding in accordance with the postulates, we then transform the symbol for seven
plus five into '0' followed by twelve stroke marks, i. e., the twelfth successor of '0.'
The procedure gives us the result we want, precisely because we are in effect merely
enumerating the total number of stroke marks, determining that the fifth successor of
the seventh successor of zero is the twelfth successor of zero; or more plainly, that
seven and five stroke marks are twelve
1
?
There is a case to be made, then, for Kant's claims that arithmetical judgments are
synthetic and that the primary ground for our knowledge of them is ostensive
construction. The question remains, of course, whether algebraic judgments rest, in
parallel fashion, on symbolic constructions. We cannot bope to explore this question
fully, but we can at least use the present reflections to clarify Kant's claim and to
suggest why he might make it.
It is important to note that in using symbolic constructions we make judgments at
three quite distinct levels. In the case of calculation, for example, we make judgments
(1) about the particular numerals jotted down on paper, e. g., that this is a '6,' that all
the numerals in the right hand column have been accounted for, and so forth. We make
further judgments (2) about the symbolic system itself, judging not just that '165'
turned up on this occasion, for instance, but that this is the outcome of the calculation.
Finally, we make judgments (3) based upon those of the previous sort, e. g., that
seventy-nine and eighty-six are one hundred sixty-five. The distinction between these
three levels is not peculiar to calculation. Judgments of all three sorts are made when,
for example, we symbolically construct the form of an argument and use the construc-
tion to judge the argument's validity.
Kant does not himself distinguish these three sorts of judgments. In particular, he
does not identify or discuss judgments of sort (2). If the ideas developed if section II are
sound, however, then these judgments have to be recognized as a distinct class; for it
was only by recognizing the role played by such judgments that we were able to
understand how arithmetical judgments can be grounded on calculation.
Judgments of sort (2) would presumably all be classified by Kant as synthetic. We
may know in some sense 'by definition' that calculation of the sum of seventy-nine and
eighty-six will yield a unique numeral string as its outcome, one which will represent
the sum of those two numbers. To know which numeral string that is, however, we
need actually to perform the calculation and to identify the numeral string actually
produced. Similarly, to know that the formula 'p' can be derived from the formulas
'pv(q-r)' and 'r' we need actually to produce the sequence of formulas which
constitute its derivation and to identify that sequence as a derivation
18
It is true, of
course, that when we finally judge that the first formula can be derived from the other
two, our judgment concerns formula types, not the formula tokens jotted down on
paper. The judgment we finally make is of sort (2), that is., and is the counterpart to the
judgment that '165' is the outcome of the calculation. The point remains, nonetheless,
17 A similar point is made by Parsons, Kant's Philosophy of Arithmetic, p.589.
18 The practiced constructor of derivations may of course see at once that the one formula may be
derived from the others, without having actually to work out the derivation. The point remains,
however, that to show that such a derivation exists we need actually to work one out. Cpo n. 16.
44 J. Michael Young
that these judgments of type (2) rest on an actual performance of the procedures for
calculation or deriving, and hence on judgments of sort (1)19.
While judgments of sort (2) are all synthetic, however, a judgment of sort (3) need
not be synthetic merely because we can and do ground it on one of sort (2).
Arithmetical judgments can be grounded on calculation, but as previously noted, it
does not follow from this that they are synthetic
20
If there are judgments of sort (3)
which can only be grounded on judgments of sort (2), however, then they must be
synthetic. Kant's view, apparently, is that this is the case with the judgments of algebra.
When he says that in algebra, through the use of symbolic constructions, we 'succeed in
arriving at results which discursive knowledge could never have reached by means of
mere concepts' (A 717 IB 745), his point seems to be not just that we find it easy or
useful to ground algebraic judgments upon such constructions, but that we can only
ground them in this way.
What lies behind Kant's claim, I take it, is a line of thought such as this: In the first
place, algebra is a more abstract study than either arithmetic or geometry. It does not
deal with particular species of quantity, such as the length exhibited by line segments or
the discrete quantity exhibited in collections of things. It deals instead with quantity as
such (d. A 717/B 745). We cannot provide ourselves with an instance of quantity as
19 It is worth noting, moreover, that judgments of sort (2) have to be grounded on ostensive
constructions. For if the present line of thought is correct, then the judgment that one formula is
derivable from another must finally be grounded on the actual production of a derivation, just as
the judgment that '165' is the outcome of the calculation of '79 + 86' has to be grounded on an
actual performance of the calculation. In producing such a derivation, however, we produce
actual instances of the various formula types with which the judgment of sort (2) is concerned.
We construct the concepts that enter into the judgments of sort (2) ostensively, in other words.
The sequence of formula tokens that we write down may also function as a symbolic
construction of the concept of an argument of a certain form. Viewed as a construction of the
concept of a certain sequence of formulas, however, it is an ostensive construction.
Reflections of this sort point toward the conclusion that the study of logical calculi would be
classified as a branch of mathematics, on Kant's view. They also indicate that the judgments we
make in the study of such calculi - judgments of sort (2) - are synthetic for just the same reason
that arithmetical judgments are, viz., because the primary ground for our knowledge of them is
ostensive construction.
20 I pointed out in n. 19 that judgments about the derivability of one formula from others,
judgments of sort (2), are synthetic. A judgment of this sort may of course serve as a ground for
the judgment that an argument of a certain form, symbolically represented by a derivation, is
valid. (Putting it differently, the sequence of formula tokens which ostensively constructs the
concept of a certain derivation may also constitute a symbolic construction of the concept of an
argument whose form is represented by the formulas in the derivation.) The judgment that an
argument of this form is valid would be a judgment of sort (3). It would not be classified as
synthetic merely because we can ground it on a judgment of sort (2). The question as to how a
judgment of this sort - a judgment in logic proper, not in symbolic logic - should be classified
is, however, difficult. The present reflections do not provide an answer. They do at least make it
plain, however, that from Kant's viewpoint it is essential to separate logic proper, in which
judgments of sort (3) are made, from symbolic logic, in which judgments of sort (2) are made.
such, however, as we can with the concept of a collection of n things. Just for this
reason, the algebraic concept of quantity cannot be ostensively constructed. What
algebra concerns itself with, moreover, is what might be called the structure of quantity
as such. It deals with quantity, that is to say, insofar as it can be generated through the
operations of addition, multiplication, etc. We may ask ourselves, for instance, how the
difference between one quantity and another is related to the difference between the
first quantity multiplied by itself and the second quantity multiplied by itself. Kant's
view is that we cannot ostensively construct the concept of either quantity, much less of
the two differences. We can construct the concepts symbolically, however, and then
x' _ y2
x+y'
use our construction to determine that x - y =
Two questions naturally arise. One wonders, fIrst, wh(!ther it is necessary that .we
should construct the concept at all, i. e., whether the algebraic judgments might not be
analytic. Kant's response to this would undoubtedly be that it is necessary, and
obviously so. We saw earlier that even the judgment that a collection of seven plus five
things is a collection of seven plus four plus one things would not qualify as analytic.
The lack of analyticity is still more apparent, Kant would no doubt argue, in even
simple algebraic judgments. It may, of course, seem trivially obvious that (x - y) (x +
y) = x
2
- y2. It is not obvious from the concepts involved, however, but only because
we have perspicuous ways of symbolically representing those concepts and because we
are practiced users of those symbolic devices.
This suggests a second question. It is evident that the familiar symbolism of algebra
provides us with easy and perspicuous ways of grounding algebraic judgments. It is far
easier to write 'Xl - y2' than to write 'the difference between a first quantity multiplied
by itself and a second quantity multiplied by itself,' and it is obviously easier to ground
algebraic judgments through the use of such formulas through arguments in complex
and cumbersome prose. Our need for such symbolism seems to be merely subjective,
however, like the 'need' we have for easy and reliable calculative procedures when
dealing with large numbers.
Kant would respond, I suspect, by conceding half the point. The difference between
the familiar algebraic formulas and their cumbersome counterparts in prose, he would
probably grant, is merely that the formulas provide a simpler and more perspicuous
way of expressing the judgments in question, and a quicker and more reliable way of
grounding algebraic judgments. Doing algebra in prose, he would argue, is like doing
calculation with Roman numerals: possible, but ridiculously difficult. At the same
time, however, Kant would very likely insist that this does not affect his central point,
which is that our knowledge of algebraic truths rests upon symbolic construction. For
he would argue that when we construct an argument in prose for the truth of some
algebraic judgment, the phrases ('the first quantity,' 'the difference between the first
quantity and the second quantity,' etc.) which play the central roles in such an
argument perform the very same function as that performed by the variables and
operations signs of the familiar symbolism. These phrases serve, albeit cumbersomely,
merely as symbols for quantities, for the sums and differences of quantities, etc., and
46 J. Michael Young
the arguments themselves, although worded in prose, therefore involve symbolic
construction of the algebraic concepts. The fact that we can construct such arguments
does not show, accordingly, that algebraic judgments do not rest on symbolic construc-
tions. It only shows that such constructions may take various forms, and that they may
be cumbersome rather than perspicuous.

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