An Argument without Reproduction and Association?

182 In A-Deduction, apprehension, reproduction, association and apperception are necessary for cognition.²⁰² The above analysis has shown how reproduction and association are incorporated into the account of cognition. However, Kant seems to hold a radically different view of what role reproduction and the laws of association play in B-Deduction. In B-Deduction, reproduction and association do not play any positive role in any version of Kant’s argument. Indeed, their sudden disappearance is one of the most mysterious things in entire B-Deduction. For instance, his argument from perception in § 26 is inspired by the argument from cognition in A-Deduction.

However, in this argument both reproduction and laws of association do not make an appearance.

Kant instead argues directly from apprehension to apperception.

In B-Deduction the reproductive imagination and laws of association play a new, and negative, role in Kant’s argument: they are introduced to form a contrast with Kant’s positive apparatus in his arguments. In Kant’s argument centering on judgment, the reproductive imagination and the laws of association are introduced to form a contrast with the objective judgment. In § 19, for instance, Kant writes that “a judgment, i.e., a relation that is objectively valid, and that is sufficiently distinguished from the relation of these same representations in which there would be only subjective validity, e.g., in accordance with laws of association” (B142).

In addition, Kant contrasts the reproductive imagination also with the transcendental imagination in many places in his argument from perception. For instance, in § 24 reproduction is mentioned in order for us to be in a better position to appreciate the productiveness of the transcendental imagination:

the reproductive imagination, whose synthesis is subject solely to empirical laws, namely those of association, and that therefore contributes nothing to the explanation of the possibility of cognition a priori, and on that account belongs not in transcendental philosophy but in psychology. (B152)

Here Kant suggests that the reproductive imagination has nothing to do with transcendental philosophy. If we take this claim seriously, it means that reproduction and association are no longer essential to Kant’s explanation of cognition. Note that this conclusion is not mundane. Since that both apprehension and reproduction/association are empirical in character, it is obvious that they do not make any contribution to pure cognition. I believe that that here a priori cognition could be harmlessly understood as the a priori aspect of empirical cognition, namely, the form of cognition.

202 Even in A-Deduction the reproduction does not always make an appearance.

183 Therefore, it seems that Kant assigns radically different roles to reproduction and association in both editions of the Critique. In A-Deduction, reproduction and association are indispensable ingredients for making possible the empirical cognition of objects. In B-Deduction Kant seems to change his mind. Reproduction and association are introduced not as the necessary condition for cognition, but for providing a sharp contrast with the necessary condition of cognition.

It can hardly be denied that there is a change in Kant’s presentation throughout A- and B-Deduction. The question is how we should evaluate such a change. It could be argued that Kant’s theory of synthesis for objective representation is inconsistent between A- and B-Deduction. In 1787 Critique Kant does think that reproduction and association are not involved in the generation of cognition. On this issue, B-Deduction marks a great improvement of the A-Deduction. This reading is uncharitable to the coherence of Kant’s theory. A more charitable response is to argue that Kant’s theory of synthesis for objective representation is consistent. One could suggest that what Kant claims in B-Deduction is not that reproduction literally is not involved in the explanation of objective representation, but that it does not contribute to the explanation of the a priori aspect of objective representation. Therefore, in A-Deduction reproduction and association falling under the psychological category are included in a complete explanation, since they do play a role in generating cognition. In B-Deduction, by contrast, they are excluded from a proper philosophical explanation, since it has nothing to do with transcendental philosophy, Kant inhibits himself from talking reproduction and its associative rules.

Therefore, Kant does not change the content of the doctrine of cognition. One might propose that in B-Deduction Kant has a better comprehension about, or a more precise formulation of, the nature of the enterprise he undertakes. Hence, Kant delineates a clear-cut line between philosophy and psychology and relegates reproduction and association into psychology.

It is often believed that Kant finds the A-Deduction too psychological, and therefore he rewrites it in the 1787 Critique. The psychologism charge is famous, but it is also little appreciated.

The psychologism charge is not targeted at Kant’s broadly mentalist approach characterized by the pervasive appeal to mental representations and faculties. As I have argued in Chapter 5, once the Copernican revolution is launched, Kant has to be committed to idealism, schematism and psychologism. To circumvent psychologism charge is not simply to reduce the appeal to representations and faculties in number or in frequency. Otherwise, B-Deduction is still plagued with psychologism, though merely to a lesser degree. Rather, to avoid psychologism charge means something specific and strong: it is to eliminate the appeal to psychological explanation. This move has twofold meanings. On the one hand, reproduction and laws of association are regarded as

184 belonging to psychology rather than to philosophy. Therefore, reproduction and laws of association are eliminated from the inventory of explanatory resources. On the other hand, the psychological fact of perception could nonetheless be employed as the empirical premise for the argument, for they are not the explanans, but the explanandum.

One could argue for Kant’s consistency from a different angle. What preoccupies Kant is the proof of the objective reality of categories, not the theory of mind itself. While Kant has to make use of different theoretical resources for the demonstration of the reality of categories, this does not oblige him to elaborate the background theories which he takes as a tool. To provide a complete description of all the elements is not Kant’s primary concern. What concerns Kant most is instead the entailment of the conjunction of the objective representation and the manifold of sensibility.

Suppose that the change in B-Deduction is a simplification, verbally or substantially, of the theory of synthesis in A-Deduction. It is theoretically profitable to make such a simplification. The more informative a theory is, the more risks it takes. Kant would make a more general and less risky conclusion that there must be some activity to synthesize all the manifold into a unity and it does so in accordance with some rules. The revision of the theory of synthesis indicates the theoretical nature of the Kant’s conception of synthesis. It is open to empirical and philosophical considerations and is susceptible to theoretical modification and even transformation.