1 upvotes, 3 direct replies (showing 3)
View submission: /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 10, 2025
While studying Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, I noticed what might be a **potential circular structure** in how **Kant derives the categories.**
Kant argues that:
1. **Categories (pure concepts of the understanding)** are necessary to provide **unity to synthesis**.
2. The **unity of synthesis** is necessary to form **concepts**.
3. **Concepts** are necessary for the **functions of judgment**.
4. The **functions of judgment** are used to **derive the categories**.
This leads to a potential **circle**: **Categories → Unity of Synthesis → Concepts → Functions of Judgment → Categories.**
1. **Categories enable the unity of synthesis:** “The same function which gives unity to the various representations in a judgment also gives unity to the mere synthesis of representations in an intuition, which is expressed generally as the pure concept of the understanding.” (B104-105)
2. **Unity of synthesis is necessary to form concepts:** “The spontaneity of our thought requires that this manifold first be gone through in a certain way, taken up, and combined, in order for knowledge to arise. This act I call synthesis.” (B102-103)
3. **Concepts are necessary for the functions of judgment:** “Understanding is the faculty of thinking, and thinking is knowledge through concepts.” (B93-94)
4. **Categories are derived from the functions of judgment:** “The functions of the understanding can be completely discovered if one can present the functions of unity in judgments exhaustively.” (B94) “In this way, there arise just as many pure concepts of the understanding as there were logical functions in all possible judgments.” (B105)
I'd appreciate any insights, critiques, or references to existing literature that discuss this issue. Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
Comment by Hot_Experience_8410 at 12/02/2025 at 08:40 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Pure reason is oxymoronic in itself as reason does not require purity thereby diluting any and all reason with the notion of purity. The same applies to most adjectives in the English language.
Comment by mcapello at 11/02/2025 at 20:13 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It seems like this would only be true if the categories themselves (1) were identical to self-awareness with respect to the categories (2), but they're not.
Comment by Hot_Experience_8410 at 10/02/2025 at 17:43 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I’d say none of this necessarily held any weight aside from pointing in the direction of the division of time and the truth, in which event it ceases to exist due to its time-correlative manner. This is the problem we have been challenged with as a philosophical community.