Unity of Apperception and the Division of Labour in the Transcendental Analytic

Abstract

In theCritique of Fure ReasonKant distinguishes two sorts of conditions of knowledge. First, there are the space and time of pure intuition, introduced in the Transcendental Aesthetic. They are grounded in our dependence on a special sort of perceptual (or imaginative) field for the location of objects. Second, there are pure concepts of the understanding, or categories, introduced in the Analytic. In one respect these are grounded in the logical function of the understanding in judgements, introduced in the first chapter of the analytic of concepts: Clue to the Discovery of All Pure Concepts of the Understanding; in another respect, they are grounded in transcendental unity of apperception, which is introduced in the second chapter: Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding, or Transcendental Deduction. I shall be concerned with the latter and its contribution to the overall strategy of argument in the analytic. Within the Analytic, Kant distinguishes between an Analytic of Concepts and an Analytic of Principles (also called ‘transcendental doctrine of judgement’ [A137/B176]). This corresponds to a traditional distinction between a doctrine of concepts (or understanding) and judgement. It is arguable that Kant's theory of concepts undermines this distinction. However, I shall not deal with that general issue, but with a more specific issue related to the first two chapters of the Analytic of Principles: the Schematism and the System of Principles. (The third chapter, on phenomena and noumena, is basically an appendix.)