Kant and the Mind (review)

Abstract

524 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:3 JULY 199 5 Andrew Brook. Kant and the Mind. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994 . Pp. xii + 3~7 . Cloth, $59.95. In this valuable study Andrew Brook undertakes the ambitious project of clarifying Kant's theory of the mind in two main parts. First, he argues that Kant's theory of mind is relevant to contemporary work in the philosophy of mind, since it remains unsurpassed on a number of issues. Second, he presents a detailed textual interpretation of Kant's theory of mind as it is developed in the first and second editions of the Critiqueof Pure Reason. Let me briefly sketch these two parts. Brook attempts to show the relevance of Kant's philosophy of mind to contemporary research in the philosophy of mind by investigating Kant's notions of consciousness and especially self-consciousness or, as Brook prefers to call it, self-awareness. He first finds fault with contemporary philosophy of mind for focusing on the content, at the expense of the nature, of consciousness. To remedy this fault he focuses on Kant's notion of self-awareness by first distinguishing between apperceptive and empirical self-awareness (ASA and ESA) and then pointing out important features of ASA. ESA is awareness we have of ourselves insofar as we are aware of objects of representations (much like inner sense), whereas ASA is awareness we have of ourselves insofar as we are the subject of our representations or the agent of our acts. One of ASA's unusual features is that it is barren in the sense that "through the T, as a simple representation, nothing manifold is given" (B135) and that it is nonascriptive. In contrast to my other knowledge, I can know that I exist (as the subject of my representations) without using descriptive terms to identify or refer to myself and without any information being given to me beyond intuition. Further, any ascriptive awareness of the self presupposes this nonascriptive awareness of self. This type of nonascriptive awareness has of course been discussed by others, e.g., Wittgenstein and Shoemaker, but, Brook argues, Kant's account is superior in that he can explain why ASA is barren in this way. To this end Brook introduces the notion of a global representation, or, in more Kantian terms, a representation of the world or nature. Awareness of an object that helps to constitute a global representation is "experience dividing" and "representation individuating," and will also conflict with the awareness of other objects that constitutes a global representation . Accordingly, Brook argues, "if any representation can serve as the representational base for [ASA], so that [ASA] is not experience dividing, the lack of manifold and the nonascriptiveness that yields it are easy to explain: [ASA] must be independent of recognition of or ascription to oneself of properties or features .... To recognize oneself as subject holds no implications that one will or will not experience any other entity or properties of any particular kind and does not differentiate this entity from what is presented by other representations. But recognizing properties of oneself would have such implications and result in such differentiation. Thus, [ASA] does not involve recognition of properties" (87). In this way (and others) Brook shows how contemporary philosophers of mind might benefit from taking seriously Kant's theory of mind in general and ASA in particular. Brook then discusses various passages in the two editions of the first Critique that bear on Kant's philosophy of mind: the first-edition subjective deduction, the second BOOK REVIEWS 525 and third Paralogisms, and the second edition subjective deduction, always with an eye towards what implications the arguments have for Kant's model of the mind. Discussion of his detailed exegetical work is not possible here, but his major claims should at least be mentioned. First, Brook stresses against Henrich, Strawson, and Guyer that ASA is not crucial to the actual argument of either Transcendental Deduction (TD). Second, Brook argues that the relational categories play a crucial role in the TD, since they alone enable the unification of global objects. Third, Brook notes that Kant's Paralogisms fit nicely with contemporary functionalism...