The Object Lost

Every theory has its costs as well as its benefits. Transcendental idealism is no exception. In spite of its theoretical utility, transcendental idealism brings forth a number of theoretical repercussions. To accept transcendental idealism implies to mitigate the repercussion. Indeed,

141 transcendental idealism comes at a much higher price, one that renders Kant’s general program obsolete. This threat is to deprive our immediate representations of their objects.

In the context of transcendental deduction, a seemingly paradoxical implication emerges: the objects of categories are gained yet the objects of representations are lost. In order to show that categories are related to objects, we must resort to idealism and thereby reduce physical objects into representations. According to Kant’s other views, however, these representations do not have objects.

It is important for us to distinguish two questions on distinct levels by distinguishing two different kinds of objects in the context of relating categories to object and assigning objects to representations.

When we say that the categories are related to objects, we are saying that they are related to appearances. When we say that objects are supposed to be assigned to representations, we are referring to objects other than appearances.

Despite its importance, the threat of losing object is not adequately thematized by Kant, and even downplayed when mentioned. Around the corner of the end of “threefold synthesis”, Kant writes:

All representations, as representations, have their object, and can themselves be objects of other representations in turn. Appearances are the only objects that can be given to us immediately, and that in them which is immediately related to the object is called intuition. However, these appearances are not things in themselves, but themselves only representations, which in turn have their object, which therefore cannot be further intuited by us, and that may therefore be called the non-empirical, i.e., transcendental object = X. (A108-A109)

In this dense passage, an inconsistency is revealed, though Kant does not develop it in detail and resolve it too quickly. The transcendental idealism claims that all appearances are representations. If transcendental idealism is correct, it follows that all appearances are representations. Furthermore, it is trivially true that representations are representations of objects.

This universality of the claim of representation to object is built into the definition of representation; a representation without an object is not representation. Therefore, appearances as a set of representations have objects. Based on these observations, an argument can be reconstructed as follows:

(Premise 1) All Appearances are representations. (By Transcendental Idealism)

142 (Premise 2) All representations have objects. (By Definition of Representation)

(Conclusion 3) Appearances as representations have objects. (By Syllogism from 1 and 2.)

However, this characterization of appearances as representations in the light of transcendental idealism stands in conflict with another more trivial characterization of appearances by its definition. This latter characterization is connected with a more subtle line of reasoning focusing on the immediacy of intuition.

In Kant’s view, representations must represent objects Os, and if the objects of representations are also representations, then as representations these objects of representations must also have further objects O*s. To terminate this regress, the ultimate objects of representations must be non-representational objects. Without this non-representational object, the notion of representation without object would be incoherent. A first-order representation is one that immediately represents the non-representational object and does not include or presuppose further lower-order representation. No matter how high the order of a representation is, it must presuppose a first-order representation of an object, to which other higher-first-order representations can anchor.

According to Kant, intuitions are immediate representations of objects. The objects of intuitions or the only objects of intuitions are appearances, despite that these objects are undetermined for intuitions. It follows that appearances are immediately related to intuitions.

Along this line of thought, what Kant needs is not the immediate representation of objects, i.e.

intuitions, but the representations of immediate objects, i.e. first-order representation. Although the latter notion of the representations of immediate objects is quite clear, it is left undecided what this notion refers to. In this situation, Kant makes move to identify the former with the latter, thus identifying first-order representations with intuitions.

Therefore, the immediacy requirement for intuition does not merely mean non-discursivity, i.e., not in virtue of marks; rather, it also means first-orderedness, i.e., not presupposing lower-order representation. Objects of intuition are not merely those objects that can be given to subjects not in virtue of marks, but those that cannot represent another set of representations and cannot find any objects for themselves. With this second construal of immediacy at hand, a second argument can be reconstructed from the quoted passage as follows:

143 (Premise 4) Objects of intuitions do not in turn have objects. (by the Second Definition of Immediacy)

(Premise 5) Appearances are objects of intuitions. (by Definition of Appearance)

(Conclusion 6) Appearances as objects of intuition do not have objects. (by Syllogism from 4 and 5.)

It is obvious that Conclusion 3 that appearances have objects and Conclusion 6 that appearances do not have objects are inconsistent. It is equally obvious that both arguments are logically valid. Then, which argument is unsound? Confronted with this difficulty, it seems that at least one of the premises of both arguments must be false. However, Premise 2, 4, and 5 are true by definition. The only nontrivial premise left open to objection is Premise 1, that is, transcendental idealism. It is tempting to suggest that the second line of argument undermines the first line of argument, and therefore it poses a serious challenge to idealism.

By contrast, as its rival theory, transcendental realism is immune from the challenge. If transcendental realism is true, then appearances are things in themselves. In this case things in themselves cannot possibly be representations. Instead, they are fundamentally real and independent, and thereby they are the perfect example of non-representational objects, namely, objects of first-order representations. It seems that transcendental realists do not to be worried by the danger of losing objects.

However, transcendental idealism is the last philosophical theory that Kant would forgo. For the initial success of vindicating the body of knowledge in mathematics seems to show an attractive picture of his general program of Copernican Revolution. Furthermore, transcendental idealism seems not merely the sufficient condition but also the necessary one for grounding synthetic proposition a priori in pure mathematics. If Kant is unable to offer a satisfactory solution to this problem, the plausibility and the promise of transcendental idealism are desperately undermined, since a theory that opens the door of explaining the first half of the phenomena yet closes it before engaging the second half is by no means a successful one. But to reject transcendental idealism is no more than to give up the only hope to accomplish Kant’s grand program of vindicating science at the very beginning. In my view, this inconsistency is the most dangerous enemy to the tenability of transcendental idealism, because it contradicts a number of conceptual truths by definition. Now, the burden of proof is on Kant’s side, and he must find some way to resolve this inconsistency.

144 In order to dissolve this problem, Kant makes a move by reinterpreting and restricting the domain of objects of intuitions. From the second argument, it is inferred that it is true that objects of intuition, whatever it might be, are not required to have further represented objects, but the represented objects referred to here can be interpreted as merely empirical objects, rather than objects in its broadest sense. What the Premise 4 exactly says is that the appearances as objects of intuition do not have empirical objects.

A second move followed would be that, in addition to empirical objects, there is another set of non-empirical objects that play the role of not being the objects of intuition, yet being the objects of representation. That is exactly what Kant does: he introduces the transcendental objects in addition to empirical objects. In effect, Kant says that objects of intuitions as representations cannot have empirical objects, yet they have transcendental objects to meet the claim of any representation to the object. Therefore, the postulation of transcendental objects is a consequence of Kant’s idealism, and it could also be viewed as a price paid for the transcendental path.¹⁷²

5.5 The Schematism Implication