Chapter 2 - Draft

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to establish the precise difference between the universality of
empirical concepts and the universality of the pure concepts or categories. To do this, I start by
examining further what for Kant ‘concept’ is and why it is universal. I will argue this depends crucially
on what Henry Allison has called Kant’s discursivity thesis: “the view that human cognition (as
discursive) requires both concepts and (sensible) intuitions” (xiv), a view that I began exploring in
chapter one. For clarity’s sake, I distinguish Kant’s discursivity thesis from what I will call the
‘sensibility thesis.’ By the latter I understand the broader empiricist view that human beings cognise
under sensible conditions, i.e., that human cognition must be affected by sensation in order to yield
knowledge. For example, if Kant claims in the introduction that “all our cognition commences with
experience” he speaks about what I call the sensibility thesis, and if he claims that “it does not on
that account all arise from experience” he speaks about the discursivity thesis (cf. B1). As I will show
Kant accepts both the sensibility and discursivity thesis, as for him, the former by itself implies the
latter.

First I will argue why For Kant the sensibility thesis implies the discursivity thesis, and why it implies
his specific understanding of what a concept is. Second, I argue that the discursivity thesis implies a
crucial difference between (comparatively universal) empirical concepts which grasp empirical
objects given in intuition, and the (strictly universal) pure concepts (the categories) that apply to the
same objects as their condition so that they can be given as objects of intuition (empirical or pure) in
the first place. Third, I argue that what is distinctive of the categories (unity, plurality, totality,
reality, negation, limitation, substance, cause, community, possibility, existence, necessity) is that
together constitute a pure object of intuition which, although pure, acquires sense in only relation to
experience. Here I develop a phrase used by Deleuze that For Kant any object “must be a unity of a
plurality, which is to say a totality; is has a reality which is to say it negates something else, i.e., it has
limitations” and so for all remaining categories (Deleuze Lectures on Kant).

The main point I make is that, since this pure object, constituted by the categories, only acquires
sense in relation to experience, it is to be distinguished – not only from ordinary empirical objects
(e.g. a cat, a table) and empty objects (Gods, ghosts, spirits, demons) – but also from ‘pure objects of
mere intuition’ so to speak, that is, geometrical objects (cubes, triangles). As I see it, the pure object
of experience (which Kant sometimes calls the “transcendental object = x”) – without which the

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combination of concepts and empirical objects of experience would not be possible – is a crucial
element in Kant’s discursivity thesis (I think a topic to which Allison does not give enough credit).

This chapter is a preparation for the next chapters on politics in the following way. Since the pure
objects is part of the explanation how initially inconsistent pluralities (‘manifolds’ in Kant’s
terminology) acquire a unity in light of the idea of totality, can help us clarifying, by analogy, that so
influential political dictum: E Pluribus Unum. This will be the topic of chapter three. Reading Kant
with a focus on the pure object constituted through the categories will later help to distinguish in
the realm of politics between ‘empty universals,’ which are simply abstract concepts devoid of any
sense (like demons, Gods and conspiracy plots), and ‘pure universals,’ which acquire sense only by
unifying and organising their heterogenous objects (peoples, cultures, institutions) into a totality,
through the embodiment/incarnation of this pure universal by concrete representatives (Hobbes:
through a sovereign representative: a king, a queen, a government); in chapter 4 the question will be
how the objectless universality of the categorical law and the aesthetic subjective universality of
taste relate to the ‘pure object of politics.’ Finally these distinctions will help clarify the debates
around so-called ‘false universals’ in contemporary politics. But this is all for the next chapters.

Kant’s discursivity thesis

Kant’s acceptance of the sensibility thesis implies that mere concepts by themselves do no yield
knowledge for finite cognisors. Thus, concepts must grasp to something outside them that is itself
not a mere concept (B272). 1 For Kant this by itself implies that concepts must have a synthetic form,
a form in which two elements are combined. This is why the form any concept must have is ‘x is y’
(i.e., involving two positions) for if it had no such form, it would not even be capable of referring,
and thus grasping something outside it that would give it its sense, i.e., to the x of sensible intuition
that would give the initially mere concept its content. This is just a consequence of Kant’s
acceptance of the sensibility thesis, i.e., that finite cognisors can only grasp things that are given to
thought. In order to be ‘knowledge-apt,’ so to speak, any knowledge claim – i.e., any concept that
through judgment may possibly grasp an object given in intuition – must have a discursive form, that
is, it must link at least two elements together. A judgment, to be objective (and thus to constitute
knowledge), must therefore at least link three elements together: the two values that make up a

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“In the mere concept of a thing no characteristic of its existence can be encountered at all. For even if this
concept is so complete that it lacks nothing required for thinking of a thing with all of its inner determinations,
still existence has nothing in the least to do with all of this, but only with the question of whether such a thing
is given to us in such a way that the perception of it could in any case precede the concept” (B272).

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mere concept (x is y), as well as the third element given in intuition which is not the mere concept
itself, the x of intuition about which the concept ‘x is y’ can be true of false. So in order to be
intelligible at all, any thought whatsoever must be at least expressed in the logical form of a concept
(‘x is y’ or further elaboration on that like ‘x is y or h is g’ ) for it is possible for an initially empty
concept to refer to, i.e., grasp something outside it, something which the concept may be about.

To clarify, imagine I am in a room with you and I shout with an empathic voice ‘red!’ It would
probably not be obvious to you what I mean. By itself, my expression of the element single element
‘x!,’ whether it is ‘red’ or ‘green’ or ‘dog,’ does not carry a lot of intelligibility. You might of course
interpret my claim in a certain way (e.g. that it is about something), or simply ask me to clarify what I
mean: ‘do you mean to say that something is red?’ By asking the question, what you would have
effectively done is changing the logical form of my expression, which initially only has one element
or one position, ‘x,’ to the logical form with two elements, two positions: ‘x is y’ (‘something’ is
‘red’). The one concept ‘something’ now refers to the next concept ‘red.’ Now Imagine I reply ‘yes
indeed! I meant ‘something is red!’ As my thought now has the logical form x is y, i.e., because it has
conceptual form, you are now a position to agree (to affirm x is indeed y) or disagree with me (x is
¬y). For Kant, this is the minimal form a thought must have to be intelligible, i.e., to be a concept
with which it is possible to grasp something.

We would still not have reached a very informative conclusion, however. No doubt that at least
‘something’ is red. Although the expressed thought has a logical form capable of referring (x is y or ‘x
refers to y’ or ‘x grasps y’), and thus capable of being true or false, it is nonetheless so general that it
is hardly informative. But imagine I reply ‘that thing over there, which I call x, that thing x is red.’ If
you would reply: ‘I disagree - that thing over there is not red, it is yellow,’ we now have a real
dispute, because there is something we are thinking about. There is something about which our
concepts (x is red versus x is yellow) are trying to grasp, about which our concepts can be true or
false (thus for Kant our judgments abouts objects are fallible). In this case, not only our thoughts (in
the form of concepts) have a knowledge-apt form (‘x is y’), but they also refer to something outside
our mere thoughts, to something given to our thoughts, something we both try to grasp with our
concepts.

Thus, for Kant, contrary to what an empiricist philosopher may want to claim, to directly sense
something red, is therefore not to know it IS ‘red’ (i.e., an object falling under the concept). Direct
intuitive acquaintance of sense data cannot yield knowledge. Knowledge involves a string of at least
three elements (a sensible intuition x, and a concept with a form capable of grasping that intuition: x

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is y) whereas, if intuitive knowledge was possible, we would be aware of only one element. We
would know something by the mere concept alone, i.e., nothing would have to be given to the
concept from outside it. This is also why for Kant, contrary to the claims of dogmatic philosophers, to
merely think a pure mathematical line is not to know something about it. For Kant, a pure
conception of a line is senseless: the line must also be given in intuition. What is initially a mere
thought, a mere concept of a line, devoid of intuition (the rule with the logical form x = y, z, a, b: ‘a
line = the shortest distance between two points’) is something that I must predicate of a given line in
intuition: the x of intuition (the line I must draw in intuition), that given x, of that x I say ‘x is a line.’
Indeed, we have a whole string of concepts constituting the concept that grasps the line drawn in
intuition: x = a line, a line = the shortest distance between two points, a point = a location which has
no size i.e. no width, no length and no depth, size = … etc.

A successful operation of this kind, which combines (synthesises in Kant’s term) these minimally
three elements, Kant calls, as we have seen, an objective judgment. This clearly relates to both the
sensibility and the discursivity thesis. In an objective judgment, we do not merely think concepts
according to their logical form, nor do we merely intuit or sense given sensations and forms of
intuition, but we are properly combining (i.e., grasping) a given particular intuition (‘that thing, or x’)
with a concept which has logical form (‘x is red’ or ‘x is yellow’). In other words, the concept
becomes part of an objective judgment if it is connected to a particular object of intuition which it
intends to grasp: ‘that thing given to me in intuition which I call x, about that that x I claim ‘x is red.’
Kant therefore calls the ‘x is y’ part of the objective judgment the form of the concept, and which is
the discursive rule-like form all concepts by nature share. This form contrasts with the judgments
content, the ‘x of intuition’ which the form/concept intends to grasp through a judgment. Given
intuitions thus provide the content for conceptual forms. Put in other words, they former give the
latter a sense.

The discursivity thesis implies that the norm for knowledge – i.e., what constitutes true, objective
knowledge about objects - is no longer some direct intuitive understanding modelled after the way
God conceives (recall that this was the case for the Scholastics as well as Descartes). As Allison
rightly remarks, Kant’s discursivity thesis replaces the classical metaphysical norm of what
constitutes true knowledge, intellectual intuition. (79). By contrasts, Kant’s norm of truth – a
successful objective judgment – is rather made by the finite human understanding itself, through
very operations of connecting concepts to other concepts and ultimately to a given intuition. These
very operations of combining are precisely what Kant calls the faculty (or power) of understanding,
that is, the understanding finite beings that cognize under sensible conditions, which therefore

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cannot string concepts and intuition together in order to make knowledge claims. By this very
process they constitute the norm for objective (true) judgments about objects.

Such a norm obviously contrast with the older norm of non-discurisve, i.e., intellectual intuition,
which implies that the truly conceived thought should not a result of combinatory operation, but
rather should immediately actual. A divine intellect conceives non-discursively therefore with a one
rather than three logical values. This means that if God conceives a line, or to take a better example,
‘light!,’ he does not have to say: that thing over there, that x given to me in sensible intuition, of that
I say x = light. His conceiving is the non-discursive commandment consisting of one value, one
position: ‘light!’ If God commands ‘light!’ then there is light. Otherwise put, by thinking, i.e.,
conceiving light, God has thereby conceived light in the same gesture, without delay. But for Kant
those being who cognise under sensible conditions, an objective judgment must take a discursive
form, that is, a logical form which involves, at the very least, three variables.

From it follows that our concepts are nothing but rules (A106). Kant shows, in other words, that
thought – i.e., thinking about objects through concepts, combining concepts with objects of intuition
in judgments - is ‘rule governed’ and in that sense ‘normative.’ To understand this, we can go back to
the earlier example, but reformulate it in terms of a series of fetch requests. Imagine there is a next-
door room filled with all kinds of objects. If I merely ask you “could you please pick ‘red’ from the
next room?’ You probably would be hard pressed to pick out the right object from the room next
door. But if I ask: “could you please fetch for me ‘the thing that is red?’ you could have a proper try.
This is because I now formulated my request in terms of the logical form ‘x is y’, namely, ‘the thing x
which is red, i.e., the red thing,’ that is to say, it is formulated in terms of a rule for picking out the
correct object, a rule that can guide you in your search. If the next room is a weird David Lynch type
room filled with some green and some yellow things, and just one red thing, then you would then be
in a good position to successfully follow the rule ‘find x, where x is red.’

But what if there are five red things in the room? You would probably come back and ask: ‘which red
thing do you mean! there are five of them!’ What you in fact ask me to do is to further define the
concept ‘the red thing.’ The way I do this is simply by adding some more rules. I say: please pick out
the red chair with the soft fabric and the wooden legs. I discursively string a series of rule/concepts
together in a chain, linking them to the ‘x’ I want you to fetch (x is y, z, a, b, c, d, e, etc.). The new
rule (x is red, chair, soft, fabric, wooden, legs) gives you a better-defined rule for picking out the right
thing, not only among the yellow and green things, but also among the five red things. Adding more
rules is just the same thing as adding more concepts that help you distinguish it from other things.

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The concept simply gets better defined so that you can more easily see which objects of intuition
accord with them.

The discursive nature of cognition thus implies that a concept nothing but a rule, or rather the set of
rules that define its object in opposition to other objects that accord to their own, different rules
(i.e., their concepts). The general concept ‘chair’ is a rule, made up of a series of (also composite)
subsumed rules (‘red’, ‘soft’, ‘fabric’ etc.) which are - if the concept is not an empty thought – all
combined in one definite object of experience, i.e., an object defined and grasped by that very rule.
Having the concept of the above-mentioned chair simply means having the correct rule (a set of
concepts connected in a specific way) that picks out (i.e., recognises the set of concepts/rules in) one
given object among many other objects. An objective judgment is precisely this successful, discursive
grasping of an object of intuition according to a rule, i.e. a concept.

Having clarified what Kant means by discursive cognition, we can now understand in what sense
empirical concepts are universals, and why categories are universal concept in a fundamentally
different sense.

The universality of empirical concepts

In his Lectures on logic, Kant defines concepts as “a universal representation, or a representation of

what is common to several objects, hence a representation insofar as it can be contained in various
ones.” So for Kant, the empirical concept ‘chair’ is universal because it is a representation common
to at least more than one possible chair-object that is not identical to the concept chair. The concept
chair is nothing but a rule that define the objects that fall under it (‘four legged,’ ‘for-sitting,’
‘sometime used to sit at dining tables’). Similarly, the concept ‘four legs’ is a universal in that it is a
representation common to several subsumed ones: the objects contained in the concept ‘red chairs
with wooden legs;’ the objects that fall under concept ‘dinner table;’ the dog playing outside; the
Boston Dynamics 4-legged robot; indeed all four-legged objects. And insofar the concept ‘legs’ is
more general than the concept ‘four legs,’ it is a representation contained in even more objects:
among others, it subsumes the concept ‘four legs’ as one of its particulars, for the more general
concept ‘legs’ subsumes all objects with one to infinitely many legs. And since the concept ‘body’ is
even more general, it is the rule that contains the objects that fall under the concepts ‘four legs’
‘legs’ ‘dog playing outside’ and indeed many other universal representations that accord to the rules
specified by the concept ‘body.’

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In this case, the more general the concept, the greater its extension, that is, the objects that fall
under it. The more specific the concept (say: ‘red chairs with soft fabrics and the wooden legs,’) the
greater its intension, that is, the greater the number of specifying concept/rules that are combined
in that specific object. Every concept is universal. The most general concepts are comparatively more
universal in that many concepts and object fall under it. A very specific concept is still universal, it
just does not have that great an extension. At the same time, a more specific concept contains many
elements that make it up (e.g. soft, fabric, wooden) – all those characteristics combined in the object
of intuition that falls under it – and that each fall under their own universal concept. It is their
specific combination in one specific concept that makes them more particular, and if they are not
empty thoughts, have an empirical back up, i.e., accord to a possible object of experience, an object
with which the rules/concept accord.

We can easily see that for Kant empirical concepts organize their objects hierarchically. Say a cat is
given in intuition since the concept ‘cat’ can grasp the object. ‘Cat’ in turn can be subsumed by the
more general concept ‘animal,’ and animal is subsumed under the even more general concept
‘body.’ One can thus draw a comparison with Aristotle’s schema of genera and species. For
Aristotle, if some individual is a chair, it is a specific species of the genus ‘chair.’ A chair for its part is
a species of the genus non-living things, and non-living things are part of the sublunary bodies. In a
similar way, for Kant, empirical concepts are relatively universal in the sense that higher concepts
subsume lower ones. Higher concepts are more universal, because their extension is greater: they
subsume more concepts and the objects falling under them. Kant indeed calls them comparatively
universal (ref).

The examples described above are relatively unproblematic and common sense. There is little for
doubting that the concepts (the rules) can accord with possible objects, for there is indeed a possible
experience (the rooms) in which there are a series of possible objects, of which one might be
defined by the rules ‘red chair,’ ‘wooden,’ ‘legs,’ ‘soft,’ ‘fabric.’ Empirical concepts can get us quite
far in determining what kinds of objects there are, and how they stand in relation to each other.

Indeed, by understanding the nature of things in terms of such a hierarchical organisation, Aristotle
found what he calls the ‘highest concepts,’ concepts of highest generality, i.e., those forms which are
not subsumed by any higher forms. For Aristotle, if some individual is a chair, it is a specific species
of the genus ‘chair.’ A chair for its part is a species of the genus non-living things, and non-living
things are part of the sublunary bodies. Bodies are said to be substances. But substances are not
part of anything higher. For absolutely all things are part of substance. We cannot go higher, more
general. So we have reached one of the highest forms, which Aristotle also calls the ‘categories’

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(among which he finds substance, quantity, quality, relatives, etc.). Categories are the concepts of
highest generality because they are said not of some, but of all things.

Kant’s categories at first sight seem very much like those of Aristotle: the Kant’s category of
‘substance’ for example seem to be precisely one of the most general concepts, applicable to all
objects of experience, just like Aristotle’s ‘substance’ is said of all objects. It seems that Kant’s
categories, just like those of Aristotle, are the concepts of ‘highest generality,’ as they are supposed
to apply to all objects. Yet Kant’s categories – those ‘most’ universal concepts that are said of all
objects – cannot be part of this hierarchy of empirical universals. Kant cannot make such a claim for
a very simply reason tied to his acceptance of the sensibility/discursivity thesis: all objects of
experience cannot be given in experience, and can therefore not be grasped by an empirical
concept.

Universality of the categories

To see why this is so, let us fist take the empirical concept ‘dog’ - a concept with a relatively small
extension which already gets us in a lot of trouble. For it seems that if you accept the
sensibility/discursivity thesis – i.e., the fact that concepts only have sense by grasping something
given (an intuition) that is itself not a concept – you can no longer truthfully claim ‘all dogs have four
legs.’ It is not a knowledge-apt concept that could be part of an objective judgment. For where in
intuition would you encounter all dogs?

As we have seen above, as finite cognisers, in order to make an objective judgment, we need to
combine at least two different elements in the concept (x = y), and then a third value given to the
concept in intuition which the concept intends grasps via the judgment. An empirical concept can
‘make sense’ (quite literally) because is always a discursive linking up of a logical form with a given
sensible intuition, the latter being the very reason the concept can have content. However, since an
empirical concept grasps something given to it from outside means that emperical investigations
that the concept guides cannot ever be closed off: experience can always give new objects that fall
under it (an entirely new breed of dog, for example) so that the concept’s extension can constantly
widen. Those objects of empirical intuition precisely give the concepts their content, their sense.
Kant indeed thinks that an empirical concept can contain an infinite number of objects (infama
species). What objects fall under empirical concepts might thus very well change over time.

Empirical concepts cannot be closed off; they cannot be known in their complete totality. As finite
cognisors we can only make a very big sum of all the dogs encountered so far, and say: all the dogs

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we have encountered in experience so far, have four legs. So it seems that Kant cannot say that ‘all
dogs have four legs’ is a knowledge-apt concept, precisely because he is committed to the sensibility
thesis. For the same reason Kant is simply barred from claiming that the concept ‘all objects are
substances’ can ever acquire its content, if by ‘substance’ we mean the highest of the empirical
concept under which all objects fall. For how could we ever know that? How could an empirical
concept ever grasp all objects as the object of a given, empirical intuition?

At this point it seems that ‘all objects are substance’ is an empty phrase if we accept the
sensibility/discursivity thesis. To further clarify take for example, by contrast, the empty concept ‘a
cat = a cat.’ It has a logical from of a concept as it involves two values (x is y) implying that we can
dispute about the claim (x is ¬y), and so it seems it can be either true or false. But of course cat
simply is a cat, and it is impossible for a cat not to be a cat. In other words, it is true universally and
necessarily, independent of experience. We can be quite sure that all cats are cats. Why? Because its
truth does not depend on a contingent experience. It is a thought we know to be true a priori. But it
is complete empty. It has no sense. The sensibility/discursivity thesis requires that in order to make
sense knowledge must be a combination (or in Kant’s terminology: a synthesis) of at least three
elements. An a priori truth like a cat = a cat is by contrast analytic: there is really only one element
involved (‘cat’) and of that element it is claimed that it is identical to itself. It has the logical form of a
concept, but there is no way it can ever be judgment with a content, since it cannot grasp an object
of intuition at all. It is true in virtue of the terms themselves: no experience is required to see if a cat
is indeed a cat.

So what about the claim ‘all objects are a substance’? At least has the logical form of a concept (x is
y) so that it seems to be capable of referring to something outside it. Yet, as we have seen, the
concept ‘all’ prevents me from checking for its truth in experience. So if it is true, it must be true
independent of (contingent) experience, i.e., a priori. is true universally and necessarily. It seems
that, if it is true, it must true in virtue of the terms themselves. Yet that would mean the thought is
completely empty.

It seems therefore that, if we accept the sensibility thesis, we cannot meaningfully put an ‘all’ in our
discursive strings of concepts making up a judgment while at the same time claiming that the
judgment holds good of (contingent) experience. Empiricists like Hume would agree. For to do so
would mean that what is expressed in the judgment is necessarily so: ‘all ice melts at a 100 degrees’
or ‘all dogs have four legs’ or ‘all subatomic particles behave according to quantum mechanical
rules.’ Yet the sensibility thesis tells us that such concepts are to be validated through experience
And since experience is contingent, it simply cannot give me any necessary truths, and so we can be

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quite sure it cannot give me any closed totality like ‘all dogs,’ let alone ‘all objects.’ To prevent
acommon misunderstanding, the problem is thus so much the concepts of substance, quantity, or
cause cannot be ‘seen’ or abstracted from experience, or cannot be applied objects of experience at
all, for there is a sense in which they can. I can of course check if an object is of certain quantity and
has a certain cause (I can empirically establish whether you wear a pair of shoes made by a
shoemaker). But I cannot say ‘necessarily’ or ‘for all.’ I can only claim: ‘so far.’ The real problem is
with the concept ‘all.’ For beings that cognise under sensible conditions, such claims must remain
devoid of sense: since experience cannot give not give you a complete series, there is no experience
that can give them content.

This is precisely why Kant cannot adopt Aristotle’s hierarchical method in making sense of the
categories as the ‘highest concepts’ or the ‘terms of highest generality.’ At this point it seems he is
rather impelled to say that categories have no sense at all. For the sensibility thesis precludes a
linear way that leads from the lower comparative (contingent, empirical) a a posterori universals to
the higher absolute universals. There is no a program to follow, no algorithm like the one Aristotle
had, with which you could climb up via the hierarchy of the comparative concepts, from the ones
with relatively small extension (man, horse, bird) to those with the greatest extension which would
be the ‘highest concepts’ (substance, number) that are said of all objects.

In this undermining of Aristotles metaphysical method, we get sense why the consequences of the
sensibility thesis are so great. With it, first Hume and then Kant, totally undermine the pretention of
classical metaphysics, if by metaphysics we understand an investigation into the basic structures of
the world or cosmos, or being qua being (ref metaphysic reader), and if by ‘the world’ or the
‘cosmos’ we mean the absolute totality of things, or the world conceived as unity of a plurality, i.e., a
totality, and of which claims such as ‘all things are substances’ belong. Such claims of course abound
from the earliest forms of philosophy onward: ‘all is water’ (Thales) ‘all is atoms and the void’
(Democritus), ‘thinking and being are one and the same’ (Parmenides). According to the sensibility
thesis, however, no concept that is linked to the concept ‘all’ or ‘necessarily’ can make sense, for an
all, a totality, cannot be given in experience. As finite cognisors, there is no way we can meaningfully
speak of the totality of objects, or so it seems. It just does not make sense, for such claims are
devoid of sensible content.

The predicament is even more dire. For undermining ‘the world’ as a coherent concept for the
reason that complete totalities have no sense, then this also threatens the integrity of objects as
unites. Democritus could claim that an atom was a basic unity. Aristotle could claim that an
individual substance basic unit. Descartes could at least claim that the idea had unit. Even Hume

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thought ideas were basic units. Here Kant is even more radical than Hume, for Kant recognises that if
it is senseless to speak of any totality, we can also not meaningfully say that 'all ideas have a unity'
something Hume seems to hold implicitely. We can of course claim it, but such claims are completely
empty, and yield no knowledge. All we can ever be sure off is that we have dealt with unities so far.

These are the radical consequences of the modern sceptical challenge to classical metaphysics,
which are a direct consequence of the sensibiliy/discursivity thesis. What it undermines is what was
fundamental for the norm of truth for all classical metaphysics: the possibility of non-discursive (i.e.,
intuitive) conception that could guarantee a mere (a priori) logical concept, if logically consistent, by
itself implies its existence This was the basis for the proof of God: if you could show it through
syllogistic reasoning, without contradiction, that would proof the existence of god. But once we
accept that such mere concept by itself, even though logically consistent, is empty – that every
concept must grasp something that itself is not the thought, that something must be given to
thought – then a merely logical proof of God is clearly empty. And the same indeed seems to go for
any proof about ‘All objects that make up the world,’ for such claims can at best be proved through
logic alone as no experience could ever back them up. It thus seems that, as Hume says: if you
accept the sensibility thesis, you must give up metaphysics (i.e., making claims about the basic
structure of the world qua world, the world-totality). Those who continue which such endeavours,
cannot also hold onto the sensibility/discursivity thesis. Metaphyscians cannot keep their jobs if they
accept that thoughts are not the same thing as that what thoughts grasp (an object of sensible
intuition). Thus, under the aegis of the sensibility thesis, the project of metaphysics, conceived as the
theory of the world qua world, or being qua being, is devoid of sense, senseless.2

But Kant does not shoot so fast. For Kant, Hume has proceeded to fast. This is quite Important
because this is precisely why for Kant Hume remains unwittingly dogmatic. For Hume presupposes
unity of the idea. But Hume cannot claim that all ideas have a unity. If sensibility thesis is true, then
all fundamental unity must go. There is no direct acquaintance at all. Here we can see why it is so
important that Kant’s discursivity thesis is not simply the sensibility thesis to which Hume would also
subscribe: for finite cognisors, all knowledge is a synthesis, all the way down. There is no such thing
as basic unity. Kant’s question is more profound than Hume’s. Why does our unity persists,
objectively and necessarily? Why does the One persist? Why does causality persist? Why does even
Hume presuppose unity and totality?

2
“However, this totality is then the system of those predicates which function in pure knowledge, i.e., a which
state something about the Being of beings. The pure concepts have the character of ontological predicates,
which have been called "categories" since ancient times.” (Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics,
39).

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Already, we are not far from politics. Undermining the coherence of the notion of ‘the world,’
‘totality’ and ‘unity’ we are Kampfplatz kant = politics. Althusser: philosophy is class struggle in
theory. Critique everything. Cutrofello. Not only a critique of unity and totality, but also: why do they
persist? Hobbes problem: how is can one come out of a many? This is really the revolutionary core,
and why Allison is right in calling it a proper paradigm shift. Classical metaphysicians could without
problem speak of the totality of objects, for they do not subscribe to the sensibility/discursivity
thesis. Hume’s challenge. Yet empiricist sometimes unwittingly hold on to it, by accepting the toaltiy
of the world (transcendental realism). Seperability thesis

The world as totality of object does not exist, so it seems. It is not intelligible for beings with sensible
intuition. So why does it seem like it is? Why does it seems as if the categories help us makes sense
of objects experience, necessarily? One of Kant's central aims in the critique is to show that the
moment we begin an empirical investigation into the nature of objects of experience, we necessarily
and objectively predicate concepts such as cause, unity, totality etc (the categories) to all objects of
experience; even Hume cannot avoid this. The project of establishing objective judgments (i.e,.
knowledge) in some sense this is tied to an illusion, but it is a necessary illusion. For the illusion of
unity and totality persist, and cannot even be eradicated, as the illusion is a constitutive element in
establishing (real, honest to John, universal and necessary) objectivity. This is precisely why Kant
thinks we need a critique. For if it is not handled well, the illusion will lead us straight us back into
the swamp of classical metaphysics.

This was precisely what happened to Allison. For this realization, under the influence of his student
Michelle Grier, made Henry Allison changed his mind in the second edition of his seminal work
Kant’s Transcendental Idealism.

I was awakened from my “dogmatic slumber” on this issue, however, by the work of a
former student, Michelle Grier. First in her dissertation and then, more substantively, in an
important book based upon it, Grier has shown conclusively that for Kant transcendental
illusion is inherent in the very nature of human reason. For present purposes, the
importance of this fact, which is sometime noted but seldom taken seriously, is that it shows
the necessity of drawing a sharp distinction between transcendental illusion and
transcendental realism.

Indeed, drawing this sharp distinction between transcendental realism and transcendental idealism
is the core of Allison’s interpretation. Transcendental realism is simply are the views that remains
wittingly or unwittingly tied to a theocentric model of cognition (the one of classical metaphysics
which involves both the possibility of a direct intuitive intuition and the assumption of a complete

12
world totality). There is no doubt that the slow and difficult project of the undoing of the theocentric
model of cognition has a direct relation to modern politics – indeed we might even say it is (part of)
modern politics.

Back to Kant. For Kant, if the categories are necessarily involved, this means that the truth of such
judgments of course does not depend on experience (for experience is contingent), and yet they
must apply experience to make sense. They are a synthetic (‘all objects are a substance’ has the
logical form x is y, and thus capable of yielding) a priori (the ‘all’ means that the judgment cannot
derive its sense from objects of experience, for experience is a contingent) judgments, that
somehow acquire sense in relation to given intuitions, even though this sense does not depend on
the contingency of experience.

Kant’s aim will be to explain, not simply how concepts can be a priori and synthetic, but most
importantly, how synthetic judgments a priori can be true, not merely as empty logically coherent
concepts, nor even like concepts of pure geometrical objects given in pure intuition, but precisely in
relation to contingent object of experience. Kant’s question is: why do synthetic a priori judgments
make sense when predicated of objects of experience? Why does they seem necessarily predicated
when we investigate objects of experience? That is, how is it possible for the categories, which are
synthetic a priori concepts (among them the concepts ‘unity’ and ‘totality’), are always come to be
involved in the determination of objects of (contingent, particular) experience, even though they
seem to have no sense if we accept that the sensibility/discursivity thesis?

Kant’s Solution

Again, let us start with a concrete situation. A judgment in which a category is predicated of
experience: ‘the cat is a unity of a plurality, which is to say a totality, it has reality and therefore
negates something else, which is to say it has limits.’ Such claims have the discursive, synthetic form
(x =y, z, a, b). As we have seen, the sensibility/discursiviety thesis seems to require that we go to
experience, i.e., look for a cat somewhere, and check if has a unity of a plurality, and whether it is a
reality insofar it negates something else: we lure it with a treat, take it up in our arms, make sure it
has eyes, legs and fur (it is a plurality) and also that these elements are attached and combined into
one thing (it is a unity of a plurality). In the same gesture we of course also check if it is not attached
to the floor, or to some other kitten, so that we can be quite sure it is a unity of a plurality. In the
process we also make sure it has a reality. With these rules we could go and look for another cat,

13
check if it accords to the rule.

Now we might say, wait a minute: of course a cat is a unity of a plurality. All cats necessarily have
these properties. I know this, before I have seen, lured and checked the cat at all. First, if its eyes,
four legs and tail (wiche are a plurality), were not part of a well determined unity of that plurality,
we would even be able to encounter it as a cat.

If I would first encounter in one room a leg, in another room an eye, and in a third a tail, I would not
thereby say that I found a cat. I would have to say I found three separate objects. Second, if through
empirical experiment I found out that he severed cat-leg could not detach from the floor because it
was made from the same concrete-like material, I could not even claim I found a severed cat’s leg.
Perhaps I encountered a weird floor-sculpture, a large object part of which was shaped like a cat’s
leg. But then I could claim that I saw a real cat’s leg, I could not combine the concept ‘x = a cat’s leg’
with the object x of intuition into an objective judgment. Third, imagine that, in another room, I
suddenly encounter a weird object that for one moment was a cat with a grin, and the next moment
was a grin but no cat. Would I be able to say: hey, of that x that appears in intuition, of that x I say ‘x
is a cat.’ For someone could of course ask me: which x do you mean the grin? Or the cat? Before I
could say ‘x is a cat,’ before I could try and go for the judgment that the concept ‘cat’ applies to the
‘x’ I encounter in intuition, this x must at least be a unity (the object possibly falling under the
concept cat) of a plurality (all the objects component parts, specified by the concepts intension: two
eyes, four legs, tail, etc), which is to say a totality (a well-defined cat), and so on for all further
categories..

So the a priori synthetic concept ‘all objects = unity-plurality-totality-reality-negation-limitation,’

though as mere concept empty, is indeed capable of becoming a judgment that makes sense in
relation to intuition, i.e., predicable of any x of intuition, for otherwise I could even not start my
empirical investigations, i.e., the process of combining given intuitions with definite concepts/rules
in objective judgments. Before I can check within experience if a certain intuition ‘x’ can be
combined with the concept ‘x is a cat,’ it must already presume that it is possible for the intuition to
be a unity of a plurality. I must presume that the x I aim to grasp is ‘something’ that could possibly
be an object, that it at least the synthetic a priori concept ‘x is a unity of a plurality’ is applicable.

So Kant’s response to Hume is to say: yes indeed, it is impossible to check if a category applies to all
objects of experience by way of experience, i.e., within experience. But I can nonetheless be sure
that the categories (unity, plurality, totality, etc.) will acquire sense in relation to experience. Not

14
because they acquire sense by being applied to objects given in experience, but because they
condition all (object of) experience.

This synthetic a priori judgment even applies, not only to objects of empirical experience, but indeed
to all objects of intuition (pure or empirical). Here we can once again see how Kant differs from
Descartes views on the intuition of mathematical objects. For Kant, a pure conception of a line is
senseless: the line must also be given in sensible intuition. What is initially a mere thought, a mere
concept of a line, is something that gets its sense from a line given in intuition. So I say: the x of
intuition (the line I must draw in intuition), that given x, of that x I say ‘x is a line.’ This is a synthetic a
priori judgment, for it does not depend on experience: I draw the line in thought, in pure intuition.
Yet even here, I can see that the line given in intuition must be at least be a ‘unity of a plurality which
is to say a totality’ for it to be given x of intuition in the first place. Simply put: the moment I say
‘look at that x of intuition, to that x I apply a discursive concept (x is y)’ then the categories already
condition that x, for it implies that the x is a stable unity of a plurality, and if it is an x is an empirical
intuition, an x of which I can also apply empirical concepts.

To take another empirical example: let say I see a bird, you see a red thing, a third sees only a black
dot. We may begin disputing about what it is. But in order to be in that position at the very least we
will agree that we see something 'x' out there, an x which is not identical to our concepts. What we
refer to must will therefore be more than mere unconnected sense data in at least in one respect: in
our grasping of 'x' there is involved the thought – i.e., the a priori concept - that there is at least a
definite something, 'x,' to which we all refer. By quibbling about what it is (i.e. try out our stock of
empirical concepts) we are already assuming that it is something outside our thoughts. Indeed, we
are already on our way to check if it is a bird, and if so, then nothing is stopping us to check with
additional concepts what kinds of objects this bird is made up (legs, eyes, cells, dna). Yet that
empirical process could not begin had we not already assumed that there is indeed a thing out
there, independently of the way will ultimately define it by our concepts (and about which we may
have difficult disputes). Indeed, it is not even certain that we will conclude that it is really an object:
perhaps it was a collective hallucination. Yet even this would nonetheless be the negative result of
our attempt to establish it as an object: in our effort to pick ‘something’ out, we are already
employing these minimal set of concepts/rules as criteria: for if it is an object, and not a chimera, it
will be a unity of a plurality which is to say a totality etc., it is actual, and thus negates other things (it
is not its background) and is therefore limited, finite, not undetermined, but determined, it is a
substance and there are object that inhere in it as accidents, it causally depends on other objects
and other objects depend on it, it thus stands in community with other objects).

15
Otherwise put, when a given intuition is in the process becoming an object of an investigation, the
categories are being applied so to make the investigation possible. For in the process of judging of a
given object that it is a bird – i.e., if the object of intuition accords to the rules of ‘bird,’ a concept
which in turn is made up of the series of subordinate concepts/rules that fall under it (wings,
feathers, eyes) – I am also at the very same time establishing that it is indeed an object: I am
establishing that indeed I cannot but deal with a unity of a plurality which is to say a totality, etc. For
if the x of the intuition will not be able to accord to those conditions, I would not eventually be able
to recognise it as an object in the first place.

This is the sense in which Kant calls the categories the ‘concepts of an object in general.’ If we
abstract from all sensible content, we see that together they constitute the rules for a pure object of
sensible intuition. Pure a priori concepts (the categories) are therefore not the same as empty
concepts as ‘God is a unity or ‘God is the absolutely infinite being.’ Such are empty a priori concepts
that cannot yield any knowledge, precisely because God is not an object that can appear in sensible
intuition. The categories, by contrast, do acquire content, for they apply to all pure objects of
intuition (geometrical objects) as well as objects of experience (empirical objects). As we have seen,
in both those cases they condition the very synthetic stability of such objects (that they are unities of
pluralities, which is to say totalities, etc.) of intuition. That is how they acquire sense in relation to
experience. By contrast, the empty thought-object ‘God,’ if ‘God’ is defined, for example, as ‘a
substance that is infinite, independent, omniscient, omnipotent, etc’. For such an object can never
be given as an object of any intuition. I can of course, with the help of the categories, think God as an
object (‘god is a unity of a plurality, etc’), but I cannot know God in that way, for insofar the concept
is not said of an x given in sensible intuition. Such a concept remains empty, senseless, in relation to
sensible intuition (A96).

Hence if one wants to know how pure concepts of the understanding are possible, one must
inquire what are the a priori conditions on which A96 the possibility of experience depends
and that ground it even if one abstracts from everything empirical in the appearances.

A concept that expresses this formal and objective condition of experience universally and
sufficiently would be called a pure concept of the understanding.

Once I have pure concepts of the understanding, I can also think up objects that are perhaps
impossible, or that are perhaps possible in themselves but cannot be given in any experience
since in the connection of their concepts something may be omitted that yet necessarily
belongs to the condition of a possible experience (the concept of a spirit), or perhaps pure

16
 concepts of the understanding will be extended further than experience can grasp (the
concept of God).

But the elements for all apriori cognitions, even for arbitrary and absurd fantasies, cannot
indeed be borrowed from experience (for then they would not be a priori cognitions), but
must always contain the pure a priori conditions of a possible experience and of an object of
it, for otherwise not only would nothing at all be thought through them, but also without
data they would not even be able to arise in thinking at all.

To summarise: empirical concepts subsume and hierarchically organise a greater or smaller set of
objects encountered within experience (according to their rules), where the categories are what
makes it possible to speak of the whole of experience in the first place. Categories constitute the
possibility of a totality of (i.e., all) possible objects of experience, without which empirical concepts
could not even encounter and thus begin to classify such objects. In a helpful phrase used by
Deleuze, for Kant the categories are “are strictly co-exstensive with the totality of possible
experience.” This strict co-exstensiveness with the totality of experience is precisely what gives them
sense: “it is through [the categories] that the notion of the whole of possible experience takes on a
sense.”

Now the unity of the object and the totality of experience are directly related. Only via the notion
that there are concepts that are conditions of experience gives the idea of a whole of possible
experience as sense. NO unity of AN intuition of A manifold, if the categories did not condition them,
and if they condition them applicable to all. The concept of an object in general and the idea of a
whole of experience seem almost identical, though not the same. But what Kant claims is that if we
begin referring to objects, then we are applying the categories, and then the notion of a whole is in
play. [purely subjective element in the process of knowledge, vs ‘a supersensible substrate’ --> that
thesis] To put it the other way round: we can speak of the idea of the whole (all objects of
experience) only because we apply the categories a priori to all objects of experience. Insofar we can
only experience objects insofar they as one, but also as multiple and thus forming a totality, that is,
insofar such concepts necessarily apply to ALL possible objects of experience as their conditions,
because of this, 'the whole of possible experience' makes sense. Through the categories, through
their inescapable application, insofar we speak of object at all, the notion that there is a whole of
possible experience THEREBY takes on a sense.

17
As I mentioned earlier, this makes the metaphysical project (if it can still be called such) very
different: ‘the whole or reality’ is neither a substantial, fully constituted totality of reality which may
come can come to know through pure thought (dogmatism), nor a non-totalisable multitude of
contingent experiences (empiricism). For Kant, contrary to the empiricist, the notion of the whole of
experience has indeed a objective sense, but contrary to the dogmatists, this whole only acquires
this objective sense through the project of it’s a posteriori construction/determination of objects of
empirical intuition – from birds and dogs to galaxies and atoms – by way of the a priori pure
concepts of (a pure) object in general.

Kant’s critique is not a first order metaphysics, if the latter is understood as trying to determine
ultimate the structure of reality, but a critical, second order metaphysics (i.e., a meta-metaphyics)
that investigates how and why finite cognisors almost unavoidably get entangled in a first-order
metaphysical mess (i.e., endless controversies resulting from transcendental realist assumption of
the completely determined whole), and how they may avoid this. Kant is here an important for
runner of ‘ideology critique’ in the Marxist sense, if we define ideology as taking one’s theoretically,
i.e., subjectively constructed worldview as transcendentally real. Yet, as I already mentioned above,
Kant shows why the illusion of a completely determined whole/totality of experience persist, and
cannot even be eradicated, as the illusion is a constitutive element in our cognition.

Comportment/capacity to judge / activity of judging.[Ref Gabriel] “The question is no longer: what is

the structure of being as such, but how are objects constituted as object of thought.” Thought must
be able to graps things that are independent of the thought, if the direct aquantance thesi si to be
refuted. Transcendental realism Allison. Logical forms, pure object, x =y : keep in mind not
subjectivist idealism, this is precisely because appearance to thought something external to thought.
Being of an object depends (in part) on an act of representing, on being represented. Apparentia
MUST be possible IF the sensible intuition thesis is true. An apparentia is: Kant “the undetermined
object of an empirical intuition is called an appearance” (A20). Non dualist intentionality thesis,
contra descartes.

We know how a concept and an intuition come together in an judgment to yield knowledge, that the
concept has the logical form ‘x is y’ which grasps an ‘x’ of intuition, and that the categories condition
the objectivity of that ‘x’ of intuition. The question now is: how does this work? How do the
categories give the x of intuition its unity, plurality, totality, etc, thereby acquiring their sense? How
do the categories help constitute the non-conceptual x of intuition.

18
Logical forms = empty / --> comportment to object. Intentional,

But this brings back, on the one hand the problem of unity and on the other hand the problem of
totality (for this is given up as completely determinable).

Concept of an object in general: pure. Transcendental object = x.

How does this happen? How is sensation connected with concepts through the employment of the
categories? We know that a pure concept has a logical form with two values. Yet how does the
object of intuition have logical form? How does the logical form get into object of intuition? How can
objects of experience have logical form so that they accord with the logical form of our concepts?

Gabriel: “the given must itself have a form that is at least minimally (object = x) compatible with
being grapsed by thought (the intuition comes to be an intuition, and thus contains relations of
space + time + categories. German Idealism: There could be no absolutely ontological gap between
the order of things and the order of thought (of judging)”

Absolutely nothing to do with berklean subjective idealism. Yet the problem is: how is it possible
that the thing given as appearance has the structure of thought?

When we aim to grasp anything at all, the possible object ('it) grasped by thought - which is not
the thought itself - will have a form that has a potential judgment at the end: x (object) = y
(thought/concept).

[cf also the number example -> unity of plurality, i.e., totality / reality, limitation, negation
{mathematical categories} / (correlates -> if there is something GIVEN empirically) -> substance,
cause, community / (possibility, existence, necessity) {dynamical categories}]

19
Logical forms of judgment piece must come here

Logical forms of judgment

What are the categories?

Kant famously derived them from the logical forms of judgment. Not presupposed any totality in
itself. Idea of a possible experience is related to the pure object. For Kant, any object is only an
object if it is a unity of a plurality which is to say a totality. It’s applicable to any object. The pure
object, or object in general is not a.

Hence if one wants to know how pure concepts of the understanding are possible, one must
inquire what are the a priori conditions on which A96 the possibility of experience depends
and that ground it even if one abstracts from everything empirical in the appearances.

A concept that expresses this formal and objective condition of experience universally and
sufficiently would be called a pure concept of the understanding.

Once I have pure concepts of the understanding, I can also think up objects that are perhaps
impossible, or that are perhaps possible in themselves but cannot be given in any experience
since in the connection of their concepts something may be omitted that yet necessarily
belongs to the condition of a possible experience (the concept of a spirit), or perhaps pure
concepts of the understanding will be extended further than experience can grasp (the
concept of God).

20
 But the elements for all apriori cognitions, even for arbitrary and absurd fantasies, cannot
indeed be borrowed from experience (for then they would not be a priori cognitions), but
must always contain the pure a priori conditions of a possible experience and of an object of
it, for otherwise not only would nothing at all be thought through them, but also without
data they would not even be able to arise in thinking at all.

[link to theme of INTENTION, CAPACITY to judge ‘something’ given]

1. the pure-pure category (the logical form of the judgment, not applied to anything -> simply
the abstract consequence relationship, the abstract concept of identity, i.e, a = a etc),

2. the pure-category (the logical form of judgment 'intending/anticipating an object' - which

turns it into the 'cause' concept and the 'unity' concept - and, coming together with other
categoreis, to posit the 'pure anticipated object' - the transcendental object - (which can still
be thought as non-spatial-temporal God {cause, unity, necessity / or for causality alone: the
consequence relation }, the pure-category is not yet specialized to be applied to spatial-
temporal events)

3. the schematized category (causality proper -> the categorie as it is schematized according to
concrete events in time)

"1.We have to distinguish between the pure-pure category, the pure category and the schematized
category.

1. The pure-pure category of cause is just the relation of consequence, you see, and that also
holds in mathematics and logic: it is the consequence relationship. [if then; there would not
have been minds had there been no galaxies]

2. Then you have the pure category which concerns the consequence relationship specialized
to concrete states of affairs, but not as necessarily temporal and spatial. The pure category
of causality is, as opposed to just consequence, the notion of the consequence relation
specialized to concrete states of affairs without committing yourself to the view that they
are spatial or temporal [they could apply to ends-in-themselves, or God]. That would be

21
 common to all experiences of concrete objects whether they are experienced in terms of
space and time or not.

3. Causality proper is a schematized category, which is really what Kant is concerned with. That
is the notion of the consequence relationship involving concrete events in time." (Sellars,
Kant and PreKantian themes, 168)

Pure concepts of an object in general. For Kant, any object is only an object if it is a unity of a
plurality which is to say a totality, etc.. It’s applicable to any object. Categories are ‘concepts of an
object in general.’ Predicates that are predicable of all possible objects. The pure object, or object in
general is not a. I could not even experience an object if it wasn’t a unity of a plurality, etc. There is
no object which is not a unity of a plurality and thus a totality, has reality and therefore negates
something else, which is to say it has limits; is a substance to its accidents, and itself an accident of
another substance; it is therefore a cause of other things, and can be caused by other things, which
means it stands in a reciprocal community (as active or passive substance) with other substances; it
is thus possible or impossible, exit or does not exist, necessarily or contingently.’

The transcendental deduction and the operation unification

22
To come back to our discussion about the meaning of universality in Kant. Both categories and
empirical concepts are universal concepts (and thus both have the logical form x is y, which is to say
they are universal rules). However, categories have fundamentally different content, and thus aquire
their sense in a very different way [totality of possible experience] from ordinary empirical concepts.
They acquire their sense from being applicable to all objects of experience, necessarily. This latter
sense of universality that we must further investigate.

1. Sensiblity thesis: Unity = not a self-subsiting individual simply given. Unity = not a simple idea
with which we are directly acquainted. All objects of experience = classical metaphysics ->
but sensible intuition thesis/reference: all objects of experience are not given in experience.
This is what you get with a NON-dualist theory of intentionality – sensibility
thesis/discursivity thesis - [c. A 129 / Allison 123] If thought is about something that is itself
not a thought (a concept, i.e., a rule, that is, a thought with at least two elements x = y, ‘x =
red’), if things are GIVEN to thought, they must APPEAR to thought (paradoxical!).

2. Descartes: the thought IS the thing. (Kant tries to think totality of world in light of sceptical
dismemberment -> he accepts humes challenge: How can you ever say ‘all objects of
experience have a unity, a cause”? (Allison transcendental realism vs idealism p. xv --> meta
metaphysics / sellars) So here: problem of universality again.

3. ‘all objects of experience cannot appear in sensible experience’ -> all sceptical empiricist
will point this out. If you want to do metaphyics, if you want to say something about all
objects of experience, you must either give up metaphysics or leave the appearance thesis,

23
 the sensibility thesis. Kant says: no. Important because this is precisely why for Kant Hume
unwittingly dogmatic.

4. Kant, in order fo such empirical universal concepts are not empty thoughts, to check if they
accord with their objects, we must go to experience. The sensibility thesis requires that
concepts, lest they be empty thoughts or mere forms, meet with given intuitions in order to
be proper judgments. Say we take Aristotles categories as the highest empirical concepts,
for example the concept of number, we may check if in a possible intuition this universal
concept applies (for example, we see one rather than two cats, and say: the concept of
number applies). This would be the most general empirical object, the most universal,
highest concept, and probably applicable to many objects of intuition.

5. Discussion of the different senses of universality in Kant: empirical concepts which are
comparatively universal, and pure concepts, which are universal in a different sense.

is a unity of a plurality and thus a totality, it has reality and therefore negates something
else, which is to say it has limits; it is a substance to its accidents, and itself an accident of
another substance; it is therefore a cause of other things, and can be caused by other things,
which means it stands in a reciprocal community (as active or passive substance) with other
substances; it is thus possible or impossible, exit or does not exist, necessarily or
contingently.

6. If ‘red’ ‘dog’ is not predicable to an intuition that doesn’t mean it is not an object. But if
‘unity’ ‘cause’ are not predicable from the very start, we coul not even say it’s an object of
which we can predicate empirical universals.

24
 7.

“In the published version of his Lectures on Logic, Kant characterizes a

concept (as opposed to an intuition) as “a universal representation, or a
representation of what is common to several objects, hence a
representation insofar as it can be contained in various ones.”
Consequently, he points out, it is redundant to speak of universal or
common concepts, as if concepts could be divided into universal,
particular, and singular. “Concepts themselves,” Kant remarks, “cannot be
so divided, but only their use” (JL 9: 91; 589). In the parallel account in
the Critique, Kant notes that a concept, again in contrast to an intuition,
refers to its object “mediately by means of a mark [eines Merkmals] which
can be common to several things” (A320 / B377). In other words, because
of its generality, a concept can refer to an object only by means of features
that are also predicable of other objects falling under the same concept.

We saw in chapter 2 that it was precisely because of this inherent

feature of concepts that Kant’s predecessors (both rationalist and
empiricist), as well as the pre-critical Kant himself, tended to denigrate
conceptual representation to a second-class status, with the paradigm
being a form of non-mediated, intuitive representation that grasps the
object as it is in itself in its full concreteness. Although the critical Kant
denies neither this feature of discursive cognition nor its inadequacy
measured by some putative theocentric standard, he does deny the
normativity of the latter standard for finite cognizers, such as ourselves.
Rather than constituting a norm to which our cognition should conform,
the theocentric model of a purely intuitive cognition is reconfigured as a
limiting concept (providing the problematic idea of a mode of cognition
with which our discursive kind is to be contrasted). Moreover, with this
“paradigm shift,” discursive cognition attains for the first time its
autonomy and normativity, as the form of cognition appropriate for finite
rational beings.” (Allison 79)

25
“As the first intuition argument makes clear, this contrasts markedly
with the structure of an intuition. Since it is the representation of an
individual, all of its components are contained in and presuppose the
whole. Similarly, intuitions are divided not by adding differentia but by
introducing limitations or boundaries.[33] The second argument builds on
this by showing how the difference in structure is reflected in the different
ways in which concepts and intuitions involve infinity. A concept does so
extensionally: it can have an infinite or, better, an indefinite number of
concepts falling under it. In fact, since Kant denies that there can be
an infima species, he is committed to the view that the search for
subordinate concepts can be pursued ad infinitum. A concept cannot have
an infinitely rich intension, however, because such a “concept” would lose
its discursive character. Although an intuition does not have an intension,
it could have an infinite number of parts within it.[34] And, Kant suggests,
this is precisely the way in which space is thought, “for all the parts of
space, even to infinity [ins Unendliche], are simultaneous.” From this he
concludes that “the original representation of space is an a priori intuition,
not a concept.”

“I have argued elsewhere that such a hierarchical organization is a

necessary condition of empirical concepts, since any such concept must
have further species falling under it (its extension) and higher concepts
within it (its intension). See Allison,Kant’s Theory of Taste, pp. 33-34. Go
back”

“Assuming the necessity of this illusory principle, there remain at least

two issues regarding the overall consistency of Kant’s account: (1) Is the
Appendix itself consistent on the question of the status of this principle,
or, as many have claimed, is Kant even there of two minds about the
matter? (2) Is the attribution of transcendental status to a principle of
reason compatible with Kant’s sharp constitutive-regulative distinction?
With regard to the first issue, the problem is clearly indicated in a
passage in which Kant comments on the previously noted connection
between the hypothetical use of reason and the systematic unity of the

26
understanding’s cognitions. Kant begins his discussion by remarking,
“From this… one sees only that systematic unity… is a logical principle,
in order, where the understanding alone does not attain to rules, to help it
through ideas, simultaneously creating unanimity among its various rules
under one principle… as far as this can be done” (A648 / B676). But, Kant
continues:
[W]hether the constitution of objects or the nature of the understanding that cognizes them
as such are in themselves determined to systematic unity, and whether one could in a certain
measure postulate this a priori without taking into account such an interest of reason, and
therefore say that all possible cognitions of the understanding (including empirical ones) have the
unity of reason, and stand under common principles from which they could be derived despite
their variety: that would be a transcendental principle of reason, which would make systematic
unity not merely something subjectively and logically necessary, as method, but objectively
necessary. [A648 / B676]
Although the clear impression left by this passage is that the principle
of systematic unity is merely logical, Kant does not deny that it is
transcendental. He says merely that up to that point (the analysis of the
hypothetical use of reason) no reason has been given for assuming that it
is anything more than a logical principle expressing an interest of reason.
Clearly, this does not preclude claiming later, on the basis of further
reflection, that it is really something more, which is just what Kant does.
Even granting this, however, we are still left with our second and more
serious question: How, consistently with critical principles, particularly
the constitutive-regulative distinction, can Kant claim that the principle of
systematic unity is both logical and transcendental? The answer to this
question is more complex and consists of two parts.
To begin with, it must be insisted there is no inconsistency in claiming
that a principle is both logical (as expressing a necessary interest of
reason) and transcendental. The reason the opposite is often thought to be
the case stems from the misguided assumption that ‘logical’ and
‘transcendental’, like ‘constitutive’ and ‘regulative’, refer to mutually
exclusive features of principles.[21] Accordingly, on this view, if a principle
is merely logical it must also be regulative, which is supposedly
incompatible with its also being transcendental.

27
This widespread misunderstanding results from the combination of a
mistaken identification of the regulative with the merely heuristic or
optional and an extremely narrow conception of the transcendental as
coextensive with the constitutive conditions of possible experience
presented in the Analytic.[22] Although Kant sometimes labels them
“heuristic,” we have seen that the transcendental ideas, to which he assigns
a regulative function, are themselves claimed to be necessary in the
twofold sense of being products of reason following its own principle and
of being indispensable for the proper functioning of the understanding. It
is the latter point that Kant emphasizes in the Appendix and that accounts
for the transcendental status assigned to the principle of systematic unity
in spite of its merely regulative function. As Kant succinctly puts it in his
discussion of the project of unifying mental phenomena by deriving them
from a postulated fundamental power of the mind,
[I]t cannot even be seen how there could be a logical principle of rational unity among rules
unless a transcendental principle is presupposed, through which such a systematic unity, as
pertaining to the object itself, is assumed a priori as necessary. For by what warrant can reason in
its logical use claim to treat the manifoldness of the powers which nature gives to our cognition
as merely a concealed unity, and to derive them as far as it is able from some fundamental power,
when reason is free to admit that it is just as possible that all powers are different in kind, and its
derivation of them from a systematic unity is not in conformity with nature? [A650- 51 /
B678-79]
Here Kant is suggesting that in order to apply the principle of
systematic unity, viewed as a logical principle, to nature, it is necessary to
assign it a transcendental status and therewith some kind of objectivity.
Although this may still seem paradoxical, it is a direct consequence of the
doctrine of transcendental illusion, which constitutes the second part of
the answer to the second of the two questions posed above.[23] We have
already seen that such illusion consists in taking the subjective demand to
seek unity (which, as a unity of reason, must be systematic) to reflect an
objective necessity pertaining to the things themselves (A297 / B353). But
since this is precisely what is being done when the logical principle is
taken as transcendental, the latter must be seen as the expression of an
underlying transcendental illusion.

28
In order to understand this properly, however, it is essential to keep in
mind the distinction between illusion and error. Seen in this light, taking
the principle of systematic unity as transcendental is not an error to be
avoided by due diligence to its merely regulative status, but a necessary
condition of its use by the understanding. Accordingly, what Kant is
claiming here is that the slide from the subjective-logical to the objectivetranscendental
understanding of the principle of systematic unity, like the
slide from P
1 to P2 that it exemplifies, is not only unavoidable but
“indispensably necessary.” In other words, the very same unavoidable
illusion, which if unchecked by transcendental criticism leads reason
astray, also turns out to be essential to its proper regulative function with
respect to the understanding. As already indicated, this is the deep lesson
of the focus imaginarius metaphor and of the Appendix as a whole.
C. The Epistemic Function of Systematicity and Its Forms
Although this may remove the worry about the consistency of Kant’s
account, both within the Appendix and with the basic tenets of
the Critique, it still leaves both the transcendental labor supposedly
performed by the principle of systematic unity and its claim to a certain
sort of objective validity largely unexplained. The former will be
discussed in the present section and the latter in the next. In order to deal
with these important questions, however, it is necessary to consider Kant’s
analysis of the logical principles of homogeneity, specification, and
affinity or continuity, which are the three forms in which systematicity
expresses itself. Unfortunately, the complexity and the contentious nature
of the issues once again make it impossible to provide more than a sketch
of Kant’s position. Nevertheless, this should suffice to bring out the major
point

As Kant presents them, the “laws” of homogeneity and specificity

represent complementary interests of reason: the former in unity, the latter
in differentiation. The basic idea is that the operation of the understanding
requires both. Without unity, that is, without the possibility of grouping
diverse phenomena into genera and these into higher genera, and so forth,

29
the understanding could gain no foothold in the world. Similarly, without
the capacity to draw distinctions within these genera, that is, to divide
them into species, and these into subspecies, and so forth, the
understanding would be unable to take a single further step. In short, the
dual empirical function of the understanding consists in unifying given
data by bringing them under empirical concepts and distinguishing
between what is unified by introducing additional concepts. But while the
process of unification culminates naturally in a highest genus, that of
specification proceeds asymptotically toward the goal of complete
determination discussed in the preceding chapter. The principle of
systematic unity comes into play because this hierarchical organization of
empirical concepts is necessarily viewed as a “logical system” allowing
inferences from genus to species, and vice versa.[26]
These considerations should suffice to explain why Kant attributes
such importance to these principles, viewing them as indispensable for the
operation of the understanding, rather than as mere desiderata of reason.
Our present interest, however, lies in Kant’s claim that, in spite of their
merely regulative function, they have a kind of objective validity.
To begin with, Kant is quite explicit about their transcendental status.
Thus, with respect to the first he writes:
The logical principle of genera… presupposes a transcendental one if it is to be applied to
nature… According to that principle, sameness of kind is necessarily presupposed in the
manifold of possible experience… because without it no empirical concepts and hence no
experience would be possible. [A654 / B682]
Similarly, with regard to the principle of specificity:
But it is easy to see that this logical law would be without sense or application if it were not
grounded on a transcendental law of specification, which plainly does not demand an
actual infinity with regard to the variety of things that can become our objects… but it does
impose on the understanding the demand to seek under every species that comes before us for
subspecies, and for every variety smaller varieties. For if there were no lower concepts, then there
would also be no higher ones. [A656 / B684]
Having already seen that Kant attributes transcendental status to the
principle of systematic unity and that the principles of homogeneity and
specificity are expressions of this unity at the empirical level, it is not

30
surprising that Kant likewise gives them a transcendental status.
Moreover, once again the key to this status lies in the underlying doctrine
of transcendental illusion or, more precisely, the inseparability
of P
1 and P2. In the present context, this means that we cannot act on these
“logical laws” or “maxims” to seek unity and diversity, respectively (P1),
without assuming that they are there to be found (P2) – not that they ever
will be found. In short, this transcendental presupposition is the
application condition of these and any regulative principles of reason.
Consequently, like the Humean principle of the uniformity of nature, it
cannot be viewed as a tentative hypothesis to be tested by the data,
because it is a presupposition apart from which there can be no hypotheses
to test. As before, the point is simply that “reason does not beg but
commands.”

This why they have the discursive logical form x = y that grasp objects of intuition.

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New junk

As Allison understands it, the discursivity thesis is not simply, following Strawson, the “relatively
unproblematic thesis that empirical knowledges rest on a duality of general concepts and particular
instances” (xiv), a view that could be equally well ascribed to an empiricist like Hume. In order to
distinguish it from the discursivity thesis, I will call this latter empiricist view of cognition the
‘sensibility thesis.’

a. “It was precisely because of this inherent feature of concepts that Kant’s
predecessors (both rationalists and empiricists), as well as the pre-critical Kant
himself, tended to denigrate conceptual representations to a second class status,
with the paradigm being a form of non-mediated, intuitive representation that
grasps the object as it is in itself in its full concreteness. Although the critical Kant
denies neither this feature of discursive cognition nor its inadequacy measured by
some putative theocentric standard, he does deny the normativity of the latter
standard for finite cognizers, such as oursleves. Rather than constituting a norm to
which our cognition should conform, the theocentric model of a purely intuitive
cognition is reconfigured as a limiting concept (providing the problematic idea of a
mode of cognition wit which our discursive kind is to be contrasted). Allison “with
this ‘paradigm shift,’ discursive cognition attains for the first time its autonomy and
normativity, as the form of cognition appropriate for finite rational beings.” (Allison
79).

Here that Kant argues that in order for any object to be an object at all (to borrow a phrase use by
Deleuze) “it must be a unity of a plurality, which is to say a totality; is has a reality which is to say it
negates something else, i.e., it has limitations” and so for all remaining categories.”

32
This is why for Kant the categories are a priori universal concepts involved from the start of the
cognitive process that aims at an objective judgment, i.e, an object about an object, rules that
condition the possibility of judging about ‘something’ (i.e., discursively linking concepts of the form x
is y with the ‘x’ of intuition) in the first place. Before any empirical can be predicated of something
particular, they are involved in the construction of that something as a intuition (a unified intuition),
i.e., not as sheer unconnected plurality of elements (In Kant’s terms: a non-unified manifold), but as
the synthesis of the inconsistent manifold into a particular intuition ‘x’ of a manifold , the x of
intuition that is needed as one part of an objective judgment, needed in order to get the cognitive
process off the ground.

So if empirical concepts define a greater or smaller set of objects that can be encountered within
experience (according to their rules), and organise sets of objects hierarchically, categories by
contrast, do not define and orginse hierarchically a set or subset of objects within experience, for
they are what makes it possible to speak of the whole of experience in the first place. Categories
constitute the possibility of a totality of possible experience without which empirical concept could
not encounter and classify any objects. In a helpful phrase used by Deleuze they are “are strictly co-
exstensive with the totality of possible experience.” This strict co-exstensiveness with the totality of
experience is precisely what gives them sense: “it is through [the categories] that the notion of the
whole of possible experience takes on a sense.”

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