Terminological Clarification

The basic idea of the argument for affinity is quite clear. Kant suggests that determinate connection of representations is inadequate, and it still lacks something else. However, Kant’s formulation of the argument requires further clarification. Perhaps the most striking feature of the argument for affinity is the repeated and complex modal expression. (AC4.2) and (AC4.3) are Kant’s two formulations of reductio claims with the explicit reference to modal terms:

if this unity of association did not also have an objective ground […] it would also be entirely contingent whether appearances fit into a connection of human cognitions. (A121)

For even though we had the faculty for associating perceptions, it would still remain in itself entirely undetermined and contingent whether they were also associable[.] (A121-122)

203 Kant’s line of argument in the Argument for Affinity is not as clear as the previous four. Therefore, I have to discard some texts in favor of other ones. This claim is rewritten on the basis of the following text: “it would be impossible for appearances to be apprehended by the imagination otherwise than under the condition of a possible synthetic unity of this apprehension” (A121).

186 The second reductio claim is loaded with two modal expressions: (a) “associable” and (b)

“undetermined and contingent”. Unfortunately, both of them are problematic. I would like first to dispel some terminological obscurity and inconsistency in this argument in order for the reader to have a better sense of Kant’s point in this argument. The expression “associable” in “whether they [the perceptions] were associable” is liable to invite misunderstanding. Normally, “associable” simply means being able to be associated, thus it indicates the possibility of association. In this case, being associated entails being associable; that is, the actuality of association entails its possibility. If this is right, Kant could trivially infer the possibility of association from the actuality of association that has already been proved in association argument. Then, it is curious why Kant says that whether the perceptions are associable is not determined.

On my view, this normal reading is incorrect. By “whether they were also associable” what Kant precisely asks is not whether association is possible, but whether the association is necessary, or equivalently, he is asking how association is possible. As a common practice, Kant’s how-possible question of x is a question of the ground of x. Kant is pursuing what the ground of their being associated is.²⁰⁴ In fact, this strong reading also coheres well with other text where Kant raises the question about association. In A144 Kant has a more precise articulation of the question: “on what, I ask, does this, as a law of nature, rest, and how is this association even possible?” (A144)

Therefore, I propose that we should abandon the normal and weak reading in favor of an unusual and strong reading of “associable”. In other words, it is more plausible to read “associable”

as the necessity of association, the one of stronger modal strength, instead of the mere possibility of association. Construed in this way, what concerns Kant is not a trivial inference from the actuality of association to its possibility, but a substantial one from the actuality of association to its necessity.

Of course, this inference cannot go through by itself, and some additional premise must be introduced.²⁰⁵

Kant’s modal expression “undetermined and contingent” is not only obscure but also incoherent.

Since “contingent” is a modal term, “undetermined” should be read as modally undetermined. Then, what does modal indeterminacy mean? On my proposal, if some proposition P is modally undetermined, then the modal status of P cannot be decided in view of the evidence one has. For instance, actuality is a typical kind of modality, but it is modally coarse-grained. It can be further determined whether it is necessarily or contingently so. The necessity and contingency are modally

204 The necessity in question of the hypothetical necessity, rather than absolute necessity. According to Kant, if x is a ground of possibility of y, then y is hypothetically necessary. In fact, almost all necessities in Kant are hypothetical except those related to God.

205 Apparently, Kant is inquiring into the mode in which representations enter connections.

187 fined-grained. The modal determinacy is deeply relative. Relative to actuality, necessity is modally determinate. Relative to some other more fine-grained modality, say, the necessity of necessity, necessity is modally indeterminate.

It is strange that Kant should use the contingency in juxtaposition with modal indeterminacy.

In Kant’s formulation that “undetermined and contingent”, the notion of modal indeterminacy and the notion of contingency are obviously not coextensive. It can entice two quite different readings on the precise modal nature of the question. Furthermore, “undetermined and contingent” are even not compatible. If a truth T is contingent, it follows that it is modally determined relative to actuality, rather than modally undetermined. The modal status of contingency excludes the possibility of necessity and it is modally determined. To claim that T is undetermined and contingent amounts to claiming that T is both modally undetermined and determined, which is obviously self-contradictory.

In the confrontation with the incompatibility between contingency and modal indeterminacy, we must decide which modal status Kant has in mind. Note that the first reductio claim “it would also be entirely contingent whether appearances fit into a connection of human cognitions”. It is tempted to draw the conclusion that the modal status of second reductio claim in question is contingent, rather than modally indeterminate, by being consistent with Kant’s first modal formulation. However, one cannot make such inference. The reason lies in that while both reductio claims are conditional, their antecedents of are different. In Kant’s first reductio claim, the antecedent of the conditional is that there is association and there is no objective ground. In Kant’s second reductio claim, however, the antecedent of the conditional is that there is association without negating the objective ground. One uniqueness claim is included in the antecedent of the first reductio claim which is excluded from the second. Consequently, the different antecedents of the conditional in two conditional reductio claims correspondingly require the different modal restriction in consequents.

Suppose that P represents that there exists a subjective ground of reproduction in accordance with a rule, Q represents that there exists an objective ground reproduction in accordance with a rule, and R represents that representations are associated. The conditional in the first reductio formulation goes as follows:

(MC1) if P & not Q, then R is contingent.

188 In contrast, the conditional of the second reductio goes in a different way:

(MC2) if P, then R is modally undetermined.

According to my reading, what Kant has in mind by the second reductio is modal indeterminacy, rather than contingency. The contingency reading is incorrect precisely because from neither (MC1) nor (MC2) does it follow:

(MC2*) if P, then R is contingent.

What Kant is pursuing is that, even if association is granted, it still remains modally undetermined whether this association is necessary. Kant’s assumption is that if the reproduction with rules has an objective ground, then it is necessary that representations are associated. Therefore,

(MC3) if P & Q, then R is necessary.

On the other hand, the reductio claim further suggests that if the antecedent is satisfied, appearances will enter cognition in a necessary way:

(MC3) If P & Q, then R is necessary.

(Premise*) P & Q.

(Conclusion) R is necessary.

Therefore, the modal status of association is condition-relative; and the modal status of association is different with respect to the different antecedent. This conclusion is critically important, for it enables us to be in a position to clarify the modal status of association. In the argument for affinity, Kant’s positive view is that association is necessary since it is grounded in affinity.

189 In some other place, however, Kant charges that association is contingent. Kant’s contingency charge of association is not surprising. In fact, this is one of most standard criticisms Kant levels to the role of association in cognition in general. One typical statement on association is contained in §18 in B-Deduction:

Whether I can become empirically conscious of the manifold as simultaneous or successive depends on the circumstances, or empirical conditions. Hence the empirical unity of consciousness, through association of the representations, itself concerns an appearance, and is entirely contingent. (B139-B140)

Therefore, Kant’s commitment to the contingency of association in B-Deduction is inconsistent with Kant’s commitment to the necessity of association in A-Deduction. One response is that Kant might change or improve his view in the 1787 Critique. I think that a developmental reading of the difference does not do justice to Kant. Rather, I believe that Kant’s theory of mind is substantially consistent and that there is no genuine difference between A-Deduction and B-A-Deduction concerning the modal status of association.

In light of the several distinctions I have made above, the alleged inconsistency disappears.

Kant’s necessity claim on association in the affinity argument in the A-Deduction amounts to claiming (MC3) that if there are both a subjective and an objective ground, then association is necessary. Kant’s contingency claim on association in B-Deduction in effect claims (MC1) that if there is no objective ground, association is contingent. If Kant’s argument for affinity is successful, then association is in fact necessary. Consequently, Kant maintains that association by itself is not only contingent but also unactual. In other words, the contingency of association is merely a hypothetical scenario. What Kant claims in §18 is that if association were not to make reference to the unity of transcendental self-consciousness, then association would be entirely contingent.

Another objection to the scope of association could be found in Guyer. In response to Kant’s contrast between subjective unity and objective unity, Guyer powerfully argues as follows:

if we were to accept Kant’s present move without qualification, we would have a dilemma on our hands: either some of our experience is merely subjective, and does not involve the categories, which means that the categories do not after all have objective validity, that is, apply to all our experience; or else all of our apperception is objective and the categories do apply to all our experience, but only because we do not have any merely subjective experience at all. Neither horn of this dilemma seems attractive. (2006, 90-91)

190 Guyer is acutely aware of the fact that the putative contingency of association implies that some objects of sensible intuition are merely associated without being subject to categories, which is inconsistent with Kant’s alleged conclusion that all the objects of sensible intuitions are subject to categories. Guyer’s objection is quite reasonable. As far as Kant’s intention is concerned, I believe that Kant is caught on the second horn of the dilemma, namely, categories apply to all of our experience.²⁰⁶ As I have explained above, Kant’s contention that association by itself is contingent is a theoretical conditional truth that is never actualized in our world. For Kant, there is no contingent association in the world just as there is no colorless shape in the world.