welcome to the ninth session of Khan's circle of revenge in the past asset to resonate or something thank you to you okay thanks everyone today we will continue our exposition on categories and then we move on to the idea of the relation between perception and object where Ken talks about three modes of synthesis or integration to bridge the gap between the understanding concepts
and sensational intuition my apologies in advance for sniffing I have a really really bad allergy I might at some point go and do some sneezing so please forgive me for this actually I need to go what a second I will come back That's okay. Okay, I will put one here under the stairs.
I'll actually... I'll actually... I'll actually... I'll actually... I'll actually... I'll actually... I'll actually... I'll actually... I'll actually... I'll actually... I'll actually... I'll actually... I'll actually... I'll actually... So last session I started talking a little bit about the introductory materials that
and provides for articulating about forms of judgment and table of categories, with the categories being the pure concepts of understanding, the manners by which the mind organizes experience. Now let's start with forms of judgement. As I mentioned,
As Kant had already made explicit, the subject of transcendental logic is between understanding and intuition. We said, we have already come to this conclusion that intuition is quite an ambiguous word and ought to be handled very very carefully. At least we need to distinguish between ING and ED . Otherwise, you know, Kant's entire rumination on intuition can be can be rife or misunderstanding.
And intuition as we have talked about can be either an act of intuiting or of some item or an intuitive item which is the object of such an act. So it's a difference between an act and an object. Now in any case, intuitions are what you might call to be singular representation. And correspondingly, an intuition can be singular representing of an item or the individual item a particular item
thereby represented representing and represented in so far as we know that Ken has already said that thoughts without contents are empty and it is I mean he has added that necessary and it's consequently necessary to make the minds concepts sensible to add an object to them in intuition so the most fundamental form of judgment what Kant means by form of judgment is a a judgment in which
an intuitive item, a particular item in the world, is brought under the concept. we talked a little bit about the concepts as principles of unity's and a perception sorry so what does it mean exactly to bring an intuitive item under the concept it means that a judgment we are forming a judgment containing a singular conceptual representing, an intuiting of an
item located in a space and time, namely an intuited. What is the name of this most basic form of judgment? Well, this is what Ken calls or sellers call perceptual judgment or perceptual taking. I take this as a red big book, so on and so forth. Now with regard to such a basic judgment, we at least have a logical subject, a subject term, but also a logical predicate.
predicate term. The logical predicate is what Kant identifies as a concept that holds of many and also comprehends, again Kant's quote, a given representation which is then related immediately to its object. This representation is the logical subject. In so far as in Kant's term no representation pertains to the object immediately except
intuitions alone, then the logical subject of a perceptual taking will itself be an intuition, namely an intuiting act or singular representing of its object, a particular kind of item which is intuited as situated here and now in space and time. Now this portrait of the most basic form of judgment provides us with an entry of the
what can call metaphysical deduction. So what is metaphysical deduction? Metaphysical deduction is exactly the reasoning through which we arrive at an enumeration of the a priori concepts that form the subject matter of our subsequent transcendental deduction. And you remember what transcendental deduction was. it was about the quid jurist questions, by what right can we form objective knowledge of the world? So when we are talking about objective knowledge of the world, now that we have moved past through
the transcendental logic, we know that such an objective or transcendental deduction, such an objective knowledge of the world, essentially is comprised of two poles. One, a priori laws that are applied to all objects of experience. One, but how, also how, these a priori laws are applied to experience as such. or to sense impressions if we want to be more precise. This is what you might call to be the objective and the subjective poles of transcendental deduction.
Sensing and understanding. Impressions and concepts. any question before I move forward nothing okay So, this passage from metaphysical deduction to transcendental deduction provides us the
key that we require in order to unlock what Kant calls the clue to discovery of all pure concepts of the understanding that is what we need to understand is his table of categories and its relationship to the table of forms of judgment that which is to say a functions of unity in judgments that precedes it what can means by functions of unity in judgment are manifested in the application of concepts. So Kant's first table of categories is consequently an enumeration of the ways in which
concepts can function as terms in judgments. You see you can't have judgments without concepts. That's, you know, we already know this. but also in a particular way by which judgments in by which in judgments concepts can be related to objects can be related to objects how can concepts can be related to objects how can the products of understanding can be related to the products of
sensibility passive reception of being affected doesn't so by objects in the environment or items what you items in the environment now here already can is a setting no kind of flash forwarding to what is yet to come not all of the questions in this answer are going to be answered in this section about the forms of judgments and the table of categories the the main answer will be given only when he starts to talk about synthesis. So essentially you want some
sort of complex interplay between understanding and sensation, some sort of hierarchy that allow you to triangulate this complex interplay. How senses are are integrated and provide materials for the concepts and how concepts can be applied to these particular manifolds of intuition, sensory manifolds of intuition. This is the job of threefold synthesis which we are going to talk about hopefully today.
Now Kant says a concept is never immediately related to an object. This is really important, never immediately related to an object. is always related to some other representation of it whether that be an intuition i.e. an intuited or an intuiting or itself already a concept again the whole idea that forget
this whole idea of simplistic ideas that you have just some sort of sensory interaction with the world and there are also you have some logical concepts and you just like basically you move back and forth between the two no can explicitly say that there is no such a thing as an immediate way the concepts can be related to objects or the sensory manifold not only categories are derived by the manner by which the mind organizes sensory experience but also how these
categories or pure concepts of understanding are applied to materials formed by sensory intuition is also complex meaning it's manifold you know there are different hierarchies of interplays Now, let's imagine that we begin with a general judgment that we have already talked about. All bodies are divisible. Now, with regard to this general judgment, Kant says, the concept of the visible is related
to various other concepts. Among these, however, it is here particularly related to concepts of body. So you see, concepts are not related immediately to intuition, but they are only immediately related to other concepts. You can only see the difference between particular items in the world, not in terms of how intuitions are immediately connected to one another by virtue of concepts being immediately connected to the intuition but in terms of how these intuitions are caught up in the immediate
connections between concepts the concept of body the concept of space the concept of of the visibility, extendedness, so on and so forth. So then again Kant continues. The concept of body, again, is related to certain appearances that come before us, i.e., ultimately to various intuited objects by means of corresponding intuitings in perceptual
judgments. So this body, that body, all bodies, that other body, so on and so forth. Which means that they can only take shape, sorry, as constituents of the logical subject. body that body the other body so on so forth yet as we have observed concepts are also essentially predicated can't explicitly sees that this is equally
true of the concept of body it is the predicate of the possible judgments every for example a stone or gem is a body this suggests another way in which a concept can be related to objects, namely by way of an inferential relationship among judgments, conceptual concepts. The general judgments, all gems are divisible, all bodies are divisible, and every gem is a body that establishes a mediate relationship between the concept of metal and the concept
of divisible. And this mediated relationship can again bring forth further mediated relationships between the concept of the visible and items intuited as, for example, this piece of gem, that piece of gem, other piece of gem, so on and so forth. Then it turns out to be the case that a concept can be related to objects in any of the four different ways as follows. One, the way in which the concept of body relates to an object in the judgment.
This body is divisible. So this is a constituent of an intuiting in the subject term of a judgment about an intuitive individual object, a particular item. Two, the way in which the concept divisible relates to an object in the judgment, this body is divisible, as a predicate term of a judgment about an intuitive object. Three, the way in which the concept divisible relates to objects in the judgments, all bodies are divisible. Generalization by being directly related in a judgment to another concept which is indirectly related to intuitive objects. Four, the way in which
the concept divisible relates to for example rock or solid objects to the judgments. Every gem is a body and all bodies are divisible. Hence by being directly, indirectly, sorry, related to a relationship between judgments in an inference to a concept which is indirectly related to intuitive objects. So these four possibilities correspond to what Kant calls the table for the form of judgments. The three moments under each rubric in turn correspond roughly to subordinate contrast
classes suggested by each heading. Under quantity we consider how many of the objects falling under the concept of the logical subject of a judgment might relate to all of them, some of them, one in particular, this one for example, this gem. Under quality we consider how a concept might be logically predicated of the objects picked out by a judgment's logical subject, affirmatively or negatively or infinitely, about which I will talk later. Under relation we consider how concepts might be related in a simple or complex judgment to each other, categorically, conditionally or as mutually exclusive.
Under modality we consider whether an inference establishes the relationships of a given concept to an object to be possible, actual or necessary. Let me, sorry. Share my screen, let me get this.
So there is a kind of arbitrariness in this whole table from today's perspective. For example, under relation, according to Kant, all relations of thinking and judgments are those of the predicates to the subjects, of the ground to the consequence and between the cognition that is to be divided on all of the members of the division. This is a division that Kant emphasizes should establish a certain community of cognitions
by reflecting relations of logical oppositions among disjointed predicate concepts that are mutually exclusive and conjointly exhausted for example you know this is Kent's own example the world exists either through blind chance or either or kind of thing judgment or through inner necessity or through an external cause So when we are talking about community, relations can basically relate to the idea of community. What means by community are what you might call to be an integration of mutual exclusive relations.
Sorry. Now also for example Kant's acknowledgement of singular judgments is a significant theoretical contribution. His interpolation of infinite judgments under quality and contrast is frequently regarded as reflecting only his fondness for architectonic system building. His example is the soul is immortal, which in tradition classifies as affirmative, in contrast to
genuinely negative judgment. The soul is not mortal. But his own attempt to explain his alternative classification and the appropriateness of the term infinite is hardly especially lucy. One way to highlight Kant's distinction is that negative judgments are exclusionary. Infinite judgments are predicational. The negative judgment that is simply excludes its object, for example the soul, from the class of items to which the predicate term truly applies, like mortal beings, thus it would be equally correct to judge that the stone or the number six is not mortal. The corresponding infinite judgment, in contrast, itself predicates a determined property,
for example, immortality, of its subject, the soul, a property that it would not be equally correct to predicate of a stone or number six. Sorry. Any questions so far? Sorry, I'm struggling with that. have sort of a some comments going on in the sidebar perhaps I my understanding intuition organizes empirical data and then I I
thought that it was the only is the faculty which organizes the contents of intuitions well you see intuition when we get the threefold synthesis on actually quite or not just one single intuition whether as intuited or intuiting. It seems that Kant treats intuitions on two different levels. What you might call to be intuition is immediately the material of or the manifold of sensory given sensory data but also intuitions as the one related to cognitive acts
It seems like... I mean, I know that you said that concepts aren't immediately related to intuition. But there's this thing that you said with respect to the question of... It seemed like you were talking about four different things first, and then you tied them into the categories. Those are the ways that how concepts are related to objects, yes.
Yes. Is that in the critique? Yes. Okay, I need to reread that part. that part but um i mean it seems like at least like with the first one i mean and this also accords somewhat with like the the later part of the principles and like the axioms of intuition and whatnot it seems like the first relation it's not still mediated but it's it's like that that intuiting itself already has a certain um entanglement with conceptuality So that, and then that is what allows an intuited representation upon which further judgments can be made.
Yes, no, that is true. This is exactly the, this is how imagination is related to intuition. or the many do they treated my fault no this is this is the job of threefold synthesis really as I mentioned yes it seems as current as I just said things that there is a level what you might call to be low growth or low grades intuition which are just a spatio-temporally order and by forms of intuition space and time as transcendental idealities and there is a
different kind which has brought under the function of imagination and then the con the function of imagination is itself tripatriate you know it works in different ways so yes there is a way that you can see that as if as if the entreated manifold is somehow already connected with understanding but you really can't talk about it in this way as a kind of a direct a straightforward relation unless you bring new hierarchies of faculties faculties are
capable of intermediating between understanding and intuition and that would be imagination and its functions its complex functions we will get into this shortly Does anyone else have any questions that they want to bring up or no? Peter, do you want to add anything? Chuggies, do you want to ask a question?
Chuggies, your mic's still not working this week. I don't know. Do you want to try and sign out and come back in, or do you want to just type in the sidebar and you have to speak for you? I'm not sure what's happening. It might be worthwhile just to say briefly, either your settings in the bottom right where you look at your settings, you've got that little speaker icon, right click, and then go to recording devices and screw with it there. And then there's also on the top of the Google Hangouts that gear, you press it, and then it pops up, and then you can screw with shit there.
Well, I can see he's unmuting himself when he does, but then it's not receiving any sound. Yeah, so it's either a hardware-ish malfunction or some software malfunction. Anyway, if you want to type in the software, I can speak it out to you. Or if you want to try and restart your computer and come back, that'd be fine. Oh, you said it's in the chat box. I think it's the question, so intuition is subject of logical form? No, intuitions are not subject of logical form. Intuitions, as I mentioned, how they can take logical form depends on how intuitions are being organized.
and that's the subject of threefold synthesis the next chapter in Kant and imagination tries to exactly do this by way of its productive reproductive forms in a sense organize intuitions in a way that they can they can particularize or yield an invariance of a particular item in the world to which the concept can
latch so intuitions are still what you might call to be in the domain of edges colored edges you know cover the facing side so on and so forth but what does it mean moving from a two-dimensional picture to a three-dimensional picture that's what image model is ultimately so this image model is what is provided for concept which means that it requires a level of organization that is not immediately given in intuition as such the sensory intuition as such so that's when you get the hierarchical model many people think that intuitions directly
you know that is start from sensibility intuition understanding and reason no between intuition and understanding there is a different faculty a different hierarchy that's imagination imagination intermediates between the two it's right it as I mentioned imagination place at least two functions to key functions that allow us to not only provide materials for the empty concept what all apply logical concepts on two intuitions I will talk about when we get to the threefold synthesis that why is that we need this extra faculty as a formal
condition for the possibility of having mine and also synthetic a priori because if you don't have it then you know the dark you either fall you either fall back in camp what might call to be empty thoughts pure logic or like fall back again on the human appearances and British empiricism is there any sense in Kant that intuitions are active or are they simply passive or Kant? Well, intuitions that I mentioned to you have two levels. One level is what you might call
to be passive, the low grade, which are just organized, especially temporally organized impression another one is an active one precisely because it is the one upon which imagination works so strangely enough I think a Kantian definition would say that intuition properly understood a book passive and active it depends on how from the lens of what faculty you look at intuition Are you looking at intuitions at the level of sensibility? Or are you looking at intuitions at the level of imagination and understanding?
And then you can see that if you see it from the sensation or passive, if you look at the imagination, particularly productive imagination, they are actually active. So you're saying that the intuitions are actively, we will get, I mean, maybe I'm jumping a little bit further on, but intuitions are actively constructed by the understanding through the application of conceptual categorical rules. Through the application of imagination. yeah but isn't the job of the imagination to apply the rules of the understanding
that that would be just productive imagination as i said there is also reproductive imagination well that's through the application of rules as well isn't it yes but you see here can't we are a little bit jumping here uh that's exactly a schematism that is schematism a Schematism, as I mentioned, so you get two things in Kant. One, applying concepts to intuitions, and the other one, so this is the downward movement from understanding to intuition, and concepts to intuition. There is also an upward movement, providing material for the concept, so the concepts won't be blunt.
This is what's called a schematism. Now, the rules of eschemism are not properly speaking conceptual rules. Now, things here get tricky. You might think of them as really sophisticated statistical rules. You can think of deep learning, machine learning, and stuff when it comes to eschemism. Can I ask you a question? Sure, sure Peter, absolutely. So there's, I thought about it only as going up from sort of sense, intuition, imagination,
I might be thinking about it wrong. What use would imagination and concepts have for intuition? Why would it be going the other way? Yes, no, you are right. You see, from the perspective of providing material ingredients for inferences we go upward from sense, intuition, imagination, understanding the reason, right? But from the perspective of the a priori it is the downward. Now the thing is that, so you have the extremes of the hierarchy, understanding and reason,
concepts and sensations. As you get toward in your hierarchy toward the middle levels things get a little bit fuzzy precisely because there are neither pure concepts nor pure sense impressions. This is exactly what the faculty of imagination is. Basically it pertains to those nebulous areas of of interplay between concepts and sensation where you are neither in the realm of pure passivity of sensations nor pure logical inferentialism of concepts. That's imagination.
Imagination is basically where you get both passivity and activity, you get both sensory intuition and concepts and you get both application of concepts to intuition and supplying material, sensory materials for the concept. So if you were going to think about it in kind of like a more contemporary way, you You could say that imagination is essentially a fuzzy, in a very accurate fuzzy valued logic, a fuzzy faculty. It's not zero and one.
It is not sensation and concepts. But it is multi-valued. Should we have a short break so I can go do some sneezing and then I will come back? We'll take a five minute. Excellent. It's probably the Christmas tree. No, it's not a Christmas tree. No, it's your doing. It's my doing. I refuse to believe this Okay, see you guys see you in a bit
It would be very very rude if I excuse myself a little bit early today. I think I'm at the verge of my brain is coming through my nose at this point. No, I think that would be totally fine since we have the... We will, you know, we will do it. We will do makeup session or, of course, you know, we will get our three sessions.
But we'll add, you know, next session to the timing. This is, I mean, these allergies come, you know, very rare, but particularly during winter, and they're just like pure torture. I think it would be totally fine if we ended a little bit early today. If everyone else is okay with that, I think that would be very kind to Reza. I'm at all on me and Kristen cigarettes and pine trees yes I was just saying in the sidebar that this is one of the hardest parts
for me in how it relates to the manifold of the intuitions well this is threefold synthesis I mean, that's I think really the only person that I have seen that they have talked about this quite astutely are Sellars, not in his earlier works, not even in Empiricism and Philosophy of Mind, but later Sellars particularly in an essay Archimedean Lever and also Jay Rosenberg in an essay called sorry it's called perception versus inner sense
this is you know this is exactly where all of this stuff about can't in content of philosophy they get it wrong majority of them majority of them is basically where the delusian circus starts. It's really I think this is actually I was listening to this there is this audio of Salars one of the main you know remaining audios because you know they used to record him on cassettes and when it gets to this thing
to this line talking about imagination says that this is where you need to be like a hawk. Thanks for the mic, Christian. So the other one I just had to change my DNS to access Sci-Hub. Now, having briefly looked at the table of forms of judgment, we can say that in first
glance, Kant's categories or pure concepts of understanding are nothing more than the forms of judgment, but specialized to cognitions of sensibly intuited objects, or Gigerishtan. And there is a reason, so in Transcendental Analytic, the reason that Kahn moves from forms of judgment to categories is precisely because categories are nothing but, in a first
glance though, appear to be nothing more than forms of judgment when applied to sensory intuitive objects now I'm going to share the table of categories and then you can compare it with the table of judgments forms of judgments that I shared with you now given the forms that judgments can take categories functionally as specified the source of concepts of sensibly intuitive items that are suitable to serve as a subject of judgments about
objects in space and time. Kant says they are concepts of an object in general by means of which its intuition is regarded as determined with regard to one of the logical functions for judgments. Now, this was an important quote. It says, by means of which, its intuition is regarded as determined with regard to one of the logical functions for judgment. In so far as we already know that any form of interaction between understanding or concepts
or categories and the sense impressions are going to be synthetic. We can also say that the table of categories correspondingly reflects operations of the understanding in synthetic role as applied to sensory intuition. So the difference between table of judgments and table of categories is really this whole idea of synthesis.
Categories are related to sensory intuitive objects. We know that anything, in any area where we are talking about understanding and sense impressions, we are in the domain of synthesis. These two cannot be directly connected to one another. They require levels of integration and organization, a complex interplay, a complex interaction. That's the domain of synthesis for Kant. What Kant means by synthesis? Precisely, it is forms of complex integration and organization that allows us to move downward
and upward. categories really try to encapsulate the synthetic role of the forms of judgment. We know already that Kant thinks that the function that gives unity to the various representations in a judgment also gives unity to the mere synthesis of various representations in an intuition. A79, B104-5.
So in this sense, the table of categories is nothing but the table of forms of judgment and enumeration of the same functions but considered from a different theoretical perspective in a different role altogether. I've screen-shared the categories if you want, if that's okay, Reza. Sorry? I've screen-shared the categories, so then you don't have to if you'd like. Okay. So would this mean that on one hand you've got the downward application of concepts to the synthetically constructed manifold?
But secondly, like with the... No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You just added an extra caveat here which was unnecessary. Synthesis is what is supposed to connect categories, who are pure form of judgment, to sensory intuitions. We are not in the business of synthesis yet. The kind of intuitions that we are looking for are what you might call to be rudimentary synthesized. sides. So, would you mentor them in what way, in so far as they are simply organized by forms of intuition, space and time? Right, right, that's actually what I was going to get to, is that
we're talking about the upward movement, correct? Yes. So, with the introduction of new faculties on one hand that can be applied downward, does this also mean that certain new faculties that that can be applied downward, later on impact the forms of intuition, which changes the upward movement through new rules that the imagination is able to apply in an upward movement. Yeah, a schematism and imagination, yes, absolutely. Yes. Yeah, the whole idea. as I mentioned to Peter you see this whole idea of imagination is really the
most you know I don't think that Hegel ever understood like hands the function of imagination Hegel is a great loss of understanding of reason when it comes to intuition and imagination they intercalate between the two cantors that thinker can't is the man and the best way to think about imagination understand it in terms of a many valued logic or a fuzzy fuzzy values fuzzy logic in a sense that we are no longer talking about upward downward we are no longer talking about zero and one you're no longer talking about sensation versus concepts. We are talking about interaction. And in the domain of
interaction things can get both messy and correspondingly complex and interesting. So it's almost that the only reason why it's useful to talk about downward is insofar as it imposes constraints or imposes different rules which are then upwardly inducted. Yes, yes, yes, yes, absolutely. It's imagination. You see, one of the things that I need to mention to you, you see this whole idea of sensing, you know, intuition, sensation intuition imagination understanding reason many impoverished
philosophy minded people including cognitive scientists think that can't really thought that oh well this is the hierarchy that can be mapped onto the levels of brain or how we actually in our nervous system think no this is absolutely not ultimately this is as I have mentioned since the beginning this is a subject of transcendental psychology mainly formal conditions of the possibility of having thinking and action you might think of these as
necessary constraints for how to think and to act with regard to an experiencing subject. So transcendental psychology as we will see and just as as soon as we get into three-fourth synthesis, tries to do a number of different things at once. It just tries to give a functional diagram of subjectivation and how subjectivation is related to the objectivation mode or pole.
subjectivation is possible. What is a subject? Well, Kant's response to this is that subject is the one that applies concepts. It's an agent that applies concepts and uses concepts. we will see in next session next section sorry can explicitly draws a link between usage of concepts a perceptive unity you know I I I was the one who ate the hot dog you know back for example
and in the possibility of experience and in that in this very moment that can't attribute subjectivity to the usage of concepts precisely because concepts and we will see are you know the the utmost important things there are the principles of unity they will can't in that very moment solves finally or replies you know in the most critical way to two of his most you know
formidable enemies Descartes and Hume. The idea that Descartes thinks that the I that think X and Y and Z is the same I because it's substantive because it's some sort of substance that for some mysterious reason preserved as the time passes and also human greediest skepticism you know when when we are talking about you you get two version of Hume the greediest skeptic you get and also you get a rational system magnetist skeptic a good skeptic that absolutely you know I think needs to be preserved but you also get a very
greedy at you a skeptic you and that human is the one who thinks that simply a sequence of thinking extincting white thinking Z is equal to the consciousness of the sequence that I think bracket X plus Y plus Z bracket so can't in that moment try to thwart these two enduring dogmas of philosophy
by showing that the complex ways by which the principle of conception and the principle of subjectification coincide and mutually necessary and sufficient. That which can apply and use concepts adequately is that which can be called subject and subject is nothing but that which can apply concepts sufficiently.
I mean, the consequences of these thesis, even if might strike you as basic and rudimentary, are vast, are absolutely vast. And the way that you can see this, you know, that is basically the core artificial general intelligence all this is stuff about you know human experience and affect as some sort of immediate forms of encounters with the world are just you know dogmatic pre-critical philosophy and I think the very idea
behind artificial intelligence has really tried to capture this, the application of concepts. It has moved away from it but it began from this gesture. I think that's why I think you know things like artificial intelligence need to be taken quite seriously in a philosophical way, not without all these quibbles about whether it's going to happen or not. We are not caring about these things, we are talking about a philosophical gist of it. And I think from a philosophical perspective is absolutely in tandem with critical philosophy and German idealist philosophy of mind.
before I move forward okay no question Or is there a question? Did you have a question? It's a very, like, enlightenment concept of subjectivity, isn't it? Because it's like how you apply, how you manipulate concepts or something.
It's got nothing to do with community or place or, I don't know. Peter, you see, you know, that's what I think. Enlightenment wasn't supposed to be extinguished, but simply taken to its ultimate conclusions, to be radicalized. Yes, in the original version of enlightenment, you get this soap opera of concepts. But what is really, according to Kant and Hegel, the application of concepts? We know that concepts are not perspectival, are not individual, are not egocentric views
on the world, but things that are basically unnatural entities which depend on their content. And what is their content? simply the inferential articulation of this how this content not only is related to other contents of concepts but also to our sensory experiences. Hence concepts can be said from this inferentialist perspective to point out to a different domain that was previously unknown from an egocentric viewpoint of an individual.
That mind is nothing but a social organo and concepts are social by-products. So the application of the concepts in fact points to hitherto unknown domains of collectivization, of reason as a collective enterprise rather than something given inside the concept itself or inside the sensory experience. So this is, I think, a dimension of enlightenment that ought to be honed out rather than to be simply discarded. And of course, it might not look like the version one enlightenment that had individualistic,
that colonialists, that had pathological traits. But nevertheless, I think Kant at least sees this, even though very implicitly, as if his vision is blurred. Hegel sees it a little bit better, but is still bogged down by some of his more weighty metaphysical commitments. And then later on you see that other people build on this. I think this is something absolutely worth to explore because yes, application of the concept, if it is just like concept manipulation, it's just what you might call to be the business of rationalization.
But the business of reason as opposed to rationalization is when you really understand what the concept is. You begin to... We don't know what the concepts are still. We are simply starting to understand the relation between concepts and the intelligible. By understanding on the one hand and on the other hand the relation between the concept and the collective. And I think this is absolutely an avenue that ought to be explored. it. Because what would be the alternative? If everything is rationalization, if there
is no objectivity, then all we are doing, no matter how much we think that we are backing the norms and the ideals of egalitarianism, we are simply in the business of rationalization. radars, infinite masculine radars of reason. I guess this relates to different pictures of how crucial intersubjectivity is to conceptual conceptual activity um yeah so you said that like you know hegel has this inflated notion of
intersubjectivity that's kind of social and into into subjectivity whereas what is preferable would be a kind of purely formal into subjectivity as a condition of reasoning um and that you think no one's actually presented that yet and that's sort of like a project to be worked towards is that your sort of the vector you see coming out of German idealism? Yes, yes, absolutely. Yes, I think that's inflated intersubjectivity which unfortunately content of philosophy has inherited in food despite in you know despite you know accusing for example analytic philosophy or like Habermas presenting this view but I think this is already
really the case in content of philosophy already hegel understands this but as I mentioned to Peter precisely because he's bogged down by Prussian nationalism and the kind of you know decrepit Kantian universalism that is still in place he doesn't he's not capable of explicit making this explicit and elaborated the consequence of it you see he says that he talks about something called concrete self-consciousness what is concrete self-consciousness concrete self-consciousness in a kind of like a very very feeble way you can say it's
the way that you can ultimately see yourself what you are in itself and what you are for itself not from the perspective of view egocentric subject but from the perspective of the world of objective reality in its unboundedness this is this is what he calls the concrete movement of self-consciousness the concrete movement of self-consciousness is not a given it is different from you know just reflective self-consciousness it is a as a matter of practical achievement is a task, a collective task, a task of the guides or a spirit, mind
as a social edifice. Now Hegel tries to find or anchor two sides to this concrete movement. One is intersubjectivity and one is objective reality. Both are required for the establishment or for articulating what we mean by the objective. Now Hegel's idea is that if you have intersubjectivity without objective reality, what you might called in today's contemporary way scientific idea of objectivity, then you are basically
degenerating into some sort of burlesque of values, pseudonorms, so on and so forth. And we see this quite strikingly happening in our time among our leftist comrades, which I also consider myself as a leftist. But nevertheless, you see this, there is an anti-scientific knee-jerk reactionism, everything is about affect, everything is about how this subject is connected to another subject without taking into account the most rudimentary claims,
theoretical fact, matter of factage, theoretical claims provided by today's science. That's a recipe for Hegel for degeneration of a spirit. Another one is when you take objective reality without intersubjectivity. That's also a formula, a sure formula for pathology. Again, you see this, but not on this today, not on the side of left, but you might call to be on the side of the smart right. You know, the kind of scientistic, technoscientistic term on the right. You see that, you know, these people, as I mentioned last session, these people come
scientists talk you know utterly ideologically vacuous stuff in the name of science and everyone claps for them and they they have become you know science today simply at least in america in north america has become just an arm of neoliberalism that's it um so so these are these are all pathologies so what you want to have is neither a an inflated account of objective reality nor an inflated account of interest objectivity you want to start with the minimum this minimum is the premise of your project the idea of having a minimum I account of inter subjectivity
an account of objective reality is that you take this to be a matter of practical achievement, a matter of a project, a matter of a task, an elaboration that takes time. Anything else should be dismissed with as another version of the given. I have a question regarding your previous point about concepts as a point of kind of like a speculation of a new form of co-activization. I want to ask this in relation to Kant's what is the Enlightenment essay. So when he positions the use of public and private reason, he seems to kind of be conscious
of that. Yes. Because he does. he does posit that public reason is the one when you actually speak out. Absolutely, Kant absolutely, I think Kant's another great essay which I'm sure you have read is what it means to orient oneself. He explicitly says that a rational subject is the commoner of reason. He used the word commoner. There is no such a thing as, so that's basically his implicit answer to Jacoby, because Jacoby later on fall apart with Kant and Jacoby started to understand that there is such a thing as a particular subject,
a genius in a more romantic sense, rather than the way that Kant uses the word genius, which is just simply a function. Genius as a particular subject, that you might say that it represents reason par excellence. What it says ought to be embraced. But the thing is that Kant adamantly rejects this idea of genius, This idea of an individual person who can set to be beyond the binds of reason, who can say to be the true voice of reason. The reason is the voice of no one. And Kant is quite explicit about this in that piece.
He uses the word commoner of reason. Yes, but the thing is that you see, you know, this Kant and Hegel really point out to the right direction. It's just that, I mean, really some person really ultimately needs to write about this without all this stuff that, oh, well, these people were just some colonialist scum, European shits and stuff. No, they were absolutely superb. Someone should say that why, despite all of these great achievements, these people in the last instance fall in the trap of Eurocentrism, you know, a kind of Prussian nationalism,
which is petty, really. I think that's someone that should write about. But yes, Kant and Hegel are absolutely really, really explicitly clear about this. There is an explicit link between conception and collectivization. You know, and then there's also the fact, and of course I wouldn't speak too much with the Prussian nationalism, definitely the Eurocentric, there's also the fact that due to the state of Prussia in that time, there might have been a substantive discrepancy between public stated views and privately held ones. Yes, yes, but you see at least you can say it in terms of Kant. You can give Kant some
quarter on this, precisely because Kant doesn't have this whole elaborate theory of intersubjectivity, society so on so forth but Hegel does but why does Hegel in philosophy of right fall in a similar trap no I really genuinely think that you know someone should write something about this but it's starting with this premise that these are the brilliant guys you know if you think that they are representing the colonialist, you know, the most despicable colonialist ideals, then you are really sadly mistaken. Then you are really colonialist. And the majority of people who talk about
Kant and Hegel in this regard are actually white people, white. You know, European white people, or American white people. You either need to be completely ignorant of the history of philosophy, or you need to have ulterior agendas to identify Hegel and Kant quite blatantly as just simple colonialists. No, they were on the right track. But the question that ought to be answered at some point is that why, despite being on the right track, in one way or another they fell in the trap of this kind of colonialist Eurocentric worldview at least when their thoughts
moved in a Hegelian sense from abstract to concrete Artem do you want to ask me a question out loud? Yeah, I was just wondering maybe is there a specific passage or something where it's like it's explicit where Kant actually like slips and just falls into Eurocentrism or is that like kind of generally looming in the background? Both. I will try to, it's mostly looming in the background but I will get you some passages from you know from his later works where he tries to,
as I mentioned, when he tries to articulate social reality, you see that the kind of his articulation is on the side of what you might call to be social conventions, rather than objectivity of the social. Any more questions before I move forward? Okay. Yes, Peter, please. No, no, please, please. No, no, no, please. Don't worry. It seems to me that you're holding up a lot of questions.
I think it's a lot of questions. I think it's a lot of questions. I think it's a lot of questions. I think it's a lot of questions. I think it's a lot of questions. I think it's a lot of questions. I think it's a lot of questions. I think it's a lot of questions. I think it's a lot of questions. I think it's a lot of questions. to me that that you're holding up with regards to what you're talking about before the denial of science and um just sort of misappropriation of it on that sort of uh on the on the right and whatnot it seems to me that um the kind is that the the very basis of that you know like um Kant is like at the, Kant is like ground zero of where all that comes out of. It seems to me that when you say we don't need to deal with like the noumenon, we don't
need to deal with the object itself. It seems, I just, I seem to hear that like echoed, like when... No, you are absolutely right. We can just talk about gender, we don't need to... No, you are absolutely right. That's why I call Kant conservative thinker. Kant precisely is a conservative thinker. But you see, despite this whole scandal of the nominal, probably the worst scandal ever philosophy, he starts to embark also on an interesting trajectory of what you might call
from today's perspective the origin of cognitive sciences in the broadest possible sense. From From that perspective, Kant is revolutionary and Kant needs to be used against so many of these people like Lent, Scott Baker, I don't know, Yudokovsky, you know, Bostrom, so on and so forth. The idea that such intelligence is riddled with necessary constraints in order to be intelligent. That, I think, is a fundamentally revolutionary idea.
But when it comes to the limitations, the kind of distant limitations, you see that Kant is a kind of a sneaky bastard that he uses some sort of limitation in the distance. What is the difference between limitations that has been put in the distance as the nominon and a limitation that is here and now, as you might say? And that's the conservative Kant. So I think we should be generous to Kant. We should admit that he has done some great revolutions of thinking in the domain of the mind, in the philosophy of mind, and by extension cognitive sciences, to elaborate the link in the platonic sense between intelligence and the
intelligible, to diverge from purely dogmatic metaphysics, but also in the domain of what you I call to be natural sciences. The limits of knowledge par excellence, he has done some great, great sins. But of course, this is the job of a philosopher. You can't find a philosopher that is going to be perfect. As I have always said, any philosopher that strikes you as to be perfect and flawless, you need to be really, really suspicious of that philosopher. Yes, from that perspective I think, from the conservative perspective I think that can't
can be aligned with not just right but also the kind of anti-scientistic materialist leftism. Yes. So, Kant has this, let me read this quote by Kant. says with regard to table of categories and forms of judgment, he says,
thus the function of the categorical judgment, which is under relation in the table of forms of judgment, was that of the relation of the subject to the predicate. For example, all bodies are divisible, yet in regard to the merely logical use of the understanding it would remain undetermined which of these two concepts will be given the function of the logical subjects and which will be given that of the logical predicate. For one can also say something divisible is a body through the corresponding category of substance under a relation in the table of categories. However if I bring the
concepts of a body under it, it is determined that its empirical intuition in experience must always be considered as subject, never as mere predicate, and likewise with all the other categories. Now this brings us to this conclusion and while the table of categories lists all basic elements of the pure cognition of the understanding, and in that satisfying the condition of completeness that Kant lays down as a logical criterion of adequacy at the start of transcendental analytic, Kant makes it clear that a fully developed systematic working
out of the metaphysics of nature would also locate, enumerate, and characterize a goodly number of derivative pure concepts of the understanding. Although compiling a complete catalog would be, as Kant would say, useful and not unpleasant, given its present critical purposes, it also is considered to be dispensable, and he consequently here contents himself with listing under the category of causality the predictable of force action and passion under that of community do the presence and resistance and under modality do the generation coming to be corruption
passing away and alteration and so on So, looking at the table of categories, we see that Kant has arrived at a systematic enumeration of the upriory concepts whose epistemic legitimacy constitutes the theme of the transcendental deduction. By explicitly grounding the origin of those pure concepts of understanding in our nature
as sensorily passive conceptual synthesizers, Kant has already laid the groundwork for the strategy of the transcendental deduction. In particular, two epistemic tasks can now be placed on Kant's agenda. One, are conceptual intuitings necessarily embodied categories? Categories are metaconceptual classifications. So the whole idea of categories, you can always think about them as classificatory conceptual entities.
Conceptual meaning non-sensory. classificatory. So categories, more accurately categories on meta-classificatory conceptual entities. Why meta-classificatory? Any answer to this? The generality perhaps, and specifically the generality insofar as it relates to space and time and the way that certain space and time things are organized.
Yeah, it's basically the idea that, you see, our judgments about particular items in the world require empirical concepts or what you might call to be a specific concept, a concept of metal, the concept of an IVA, so on and so forth. These concepts, these particular specific concepts, empirical concepts, you might say that they require a higher level of abstraction, a higher level of generality, that can kind of sort out these, the relation between these empirical concepts and how they are related to intuition. These are what you might call to be categories, hence the meta-status of
them. So, one was, first one, are conceptual intuitings necessarily embodied categories? Categories are meta-conceptual classifications, concepts under which we intuit a spatial temporal items belong to the classes of concepts functionally picked out by the categories. And second is that are sensory intuiteds necessarily fit or respond to the categories.
For example, that all times, that all times which we intuit as in a space and time, in in fact, fall under concepts belonging to the classes picked out by the categories. Those pure concepts of understanding that are enumerated on the table. These two tasks are most explicitly sorted out in the second edition. In Kant's transition from the first part of the deduction in which, one, the possibility of the categories as a priori technicians of objects of intuition in general is established to a second part in which the possibility of cognizing a priori through categories,
whatever objects may come before our senses, remains to be secured. B. 159.60. So another way of thinking about categories is that they essentially have a very general form. As I mentioned, you might think about as the highest level of abstraction. that usually conforms to the form every must.
Every gem must be divisible. So on and so forth. Every must. Everything that falls under this category must have such attributes, hence the classificatory, general classificatory, metaclassificatory status of them. Can you, can you put the table of categories? Sure. All right.
Can you see all right? You may need to click my icon. have you noticed there is a strange relation between for each section of these four sections for each section we have an interesting relation between the first term the second term and third term can anyone see that and if you see can you please elaborate what it is seems like the third term is in some sense maybe most general not essentially no
Okay, maybe that will be your homework for the Google Classroom. Articulate the relation between the first, second, and the third term of each section on the table of categories. What would... There is some sort of ordering here. between, for example, reality negation limitation. Like the third term is sort of a combination of the first two terms? Yes. So what is necessity exactly?
new relationship of possibility and existence i mean insofar as like it's something that it it is possible it exists yes yes now okay now that hunter answered the uh the question then think about what kind of exactly the kind of judgments are we really justified to draw The third term from the combination of the first two, and if so, exactly what kind of judgment are we engaging, are we using here to arrive at the third term? That would be again, okay, that would be now your homework.
Limitation, you know, as Hunter says, is the combination of reality and negation. but what is exactly the kind of judgment that we use to arrive from reality and negation to limitation and is it if there is a form of judgment as you can arrive that form of judgment can can we say the form of judgment to be justified for all the terms on the table of categories. And if you are really really going to geek out over this, try to write it in logical notations to see
if it really holds up. Okay. now I think today this is my cognitive limit a little bit how did the meltdown allergic meltdown in case so if you have a question please do ask if not you know we will continue and we will extend next session going to the synthesis and so you can read the
chapter on synthesis and also the chapter after that and we will work on on that front and particularly synthesis is the most interesting one really critical reason again I'm very very sorry for this don't need to apologize well unless there's any last struggling questions on the broadcast today I was going to ask just one mostly regarding I've got lots of questions when I get to the synthesis but so with respect to... There's... I've actually got it. Sorry. Yes, okay.
So, just with respect to... You already recommended the Pselars Archimedean Lever and then the Rosenberg on the Perception and something. I already linked it to the classroom. What would you recommend on Intuited and Intuidines and seen of and seen as hmm that is really hard because that's part of sellers lectures carous lectures I don't know a single text that can you know address all
of your questions I mean there is a little bit of this in the forthcoming manuscript another thing that I would recommend on this topic that you just asked is let me tell you which one of these is called sorry okay it's called some remarks on Kant's theory of experience again by sellers all right some some remarks on can't's theory of experience and then you said what was the lectures you said caris lectures i will i will i will i will i will download it it's actually
multiple volumes but there is one specific volume where he talks about this okay thank Thank you. Oh, I found it. Okay, thank you. And those are the main places you've got the intuited, intuiting distinction? Yes, but I mean, you see, it's actually now a convention, at least in the contemporary reading of Kant, to hold this distinction after Sellars. you can see it in many many books but the thing is I don't know one single essay that addresses and focuses on this particular distinction Foundations of a Metaphysics of Pure Process
No, that's not the answer Oh, okay Yeah, I don't know then because that's the only sellers I see in this Yeah, I will but I think the remote some remarks anterior experience should should somehow answer your question be alright thank you right I will broadcast thank you everyone and again I apologize for underperforming today. No, no. No need to. I apologize.