Week IV: Transcendental Deduction (A)
General Secondary Reading (optional): Allison pp. 159-201; Heidegger pp. 40-62; Strawson pp. 85-117.
Question 1) What is the "transcendental object=x"? Is it necessary to Kant's argument or should we regard it as a holdover from his pre-Critical thought? Is Kant really a phenomenalist, attributing full reality only to "sense-data" and viewing objects only as "logical constructs" fictions that we use when explaining the sensory phenomena?

Secondary literature: Strawson, 89-110; Heidegger 1967: 137-44; Wolff, 111-9; Smith, 204-19; Bennett, 126-34; Walker, 74-82, 106-10; Allison, 38-42 (optional 42-9); Pippin, 188-204; van Cleve 90-8 (optional 98-104)
Question 2) a) Why does the "I" need to be unified? b) Does the unity of the self depend on the unity of objects?

Secondary literature: Strawson 1959: 87-116; Strawson 1966: 93-117; Bennett, 100-34; Pippin, 151-66; Kitcher, "Kant on Self-Identity" in Philosophical Review 90: 41-72, Kitcher 1990: 117-42 (optional: 61-116); Walker, 74-86; van Cleve 79-84.

Question 3) "A pure imagination, which conditions all a priori knowledge, is thus one of the fundamental faculties of the human soul." (A124). Just how important is the imagination to the unity of experience, in Transcendental Deduction (A)? What relation does it bear to the understanding? Kant says: "In the understanding there are then pure a priori modes of knowledge which contain the necessary unity of the pure synthesis of imagination …." (A119) How can the understanding contain the unity of the imagination's activity?

Secondary literature: Strawson 1966: 93-7; Bennett, 134-8; Wolff, 75-6, 201-2, 274; Smith, 264-5; Heidegger 1997: 61-72, 133-52; Schrader, "Kant's Theory of Concepts," copy on reserve; Aquila 1989: 49-52 (with footnote 5); Warnock, 23-34.

Question 4) Is Transcendental Deduction (A) a "patchwork"?

Secondary literature: Wolff, 111-9; Vaihinger, Paton (in Gram, 13-91)

Question 5) Why does Kant discuss three different syntheses in the A-Deduction? What role does each synthesis play in the overall deduction?

Secondary literature: van Cleve, 84-8; Longuenesse 35-58; (This would be a good week to find at least one more relevant secondary source.)

Question 6) Is the transcendental deduction a "psychological" argument? What would this mean?

Secondary literature: Strawson 31-2, 88, 97; Allison 1996: 53-66; Kitcher 61-90, skim 91-180, read "Kant on Self-Identity" (in JSTOR, Philosophical Review 90: 41-72 (1982); find at read at least one scholarly review of Kitcher's book.

Question 7) Are the three syntheses of imagination the basis for Kant's account of aesthetic response in the Critique of Judgment? Does "imagination" mean the same thing in the two works? (This question is primarily for those with some previous familiarity with the Critique of Judgment.)

Secondary literature: Kant, Critique of Judgment, introduction, §§6-12, 17, "General Comment…"; van Cleve, 84-8; Warnock, 23-63; Guyer 1997: 79-99.