Notice: This page represents a project in development, and perhaps a very slow development at that; and does not yet represent a settled opinion as of 4/12/03. It is more a musing and wondering at this stage. For more current essays see Kant.

[This represents a sketch of an introduction to an essay on Freedom which I am in process of composing with the intention of presenting it to Kant-Studien for consideration for publication. It is, I think, my best yet grasp and expression of Kant's notion of Transcendental Idealism.]

All humans together in concert (and individually at first prompted by a Wittgensteinian-style word game) invent an objective world in order that we can calibrate and coordinate all our (otherwise incoherent) depictions as reflections, as it were, of that objective world. It strikes me as really being quite amazing and entirely synthetic and a priori. In fact it is so plausible and appealing that it is not immediately apparant why Kant thought he needed to tie it in so closely with a synthetic, a priori character to mathematics.*

[* The reason why is this: in order to recognize anything for sure, we must see our recognition coming to consciousness. With regard to perception, this coming-to-see is empirical for we are engaged in the second look, having been prompted by a suspicion or hunch to begin with. I will try to make this clear during the course of this essay. With regard to mathematics and geometry, we are not dealing with perceptions, but rather with a pure envisagement, whereby then we see the object in question at first glance. Ludwig Wittgenstein failed to grasp this, in my opinion, becasue he was led astray by the general (mis)use of "intuition" as the meaning of "Anschauung." With regard to the addition of five to seven, Wittgenstein (essentially) imagined a numeral board game. Begining with the seven, he would then have the student prance his fingers up the board five spaces to discover a "12" on that spot, and then, with increased familiarity, would finally catch on to the numeral game. But this is fallacious, and the certitude we have of mathematics, whcih Wittgenstein acknowledged but which he also could not explain, cannot arise in this way. It is impossible to keep one's mind focused on two things at once, namely (in this case) the movement of the numerals beneath the fingers of 8 9 10 11 and 12 and the recitation that he required of 1 2 3 4 and 5. This fact is increasingly clear with larger numbers, as Kant himself indicated. It is only by virtue of seeing the five fingers as a constellation, as it were (much as we see the Seven Stars of the Chinese as a Big Dipper in America), that we are able to take our minds off of the 1 2 3 4 and 5 progression and focus entirely on the 8 9 10 11 and 12. And so it is only in keeping the patterned and unified five in mind via the envisagement/Anschauung of the fingers of our hand that we are able to see the progression of the seven continuing on to the 12 and thus see how it is that 12 is and must be the result of this addition.]

Essentially the thesis of the TDA (the A version of the Transcendental Deduction [of the Categories]) is that there are no coincidences, for the notion of the category-driven mind is that of connection, and indeed universal connection. Then, taken by a possible connection, we make so-called second looks (perceptions) to make sure* and these lead us to connections (to connect the elements of the perceptions) and these connections then fit together in a universality spanning the whole (of all these perceptions/experiences) known as nature (although we tend to think it means: existence in general [and which becomes a source of our problems when we turn to the ideas of pure reason]).

[* An example: I spy a roach on my kitchen counter out of the corner of my eye as I glance about while mentally preoccupied. Startled I turn to look at it straight on, and find that I am now looking at a raisin which is very similar to the raisins from my breakfast cereal. This straight-on look is a conscious look for the purpose of making sure, and it is properly called a perception (Wahr-nehmung, or care-taking look). It is an a priori consciousness which Kant mentioned in his footnote to the TDB.24. The content is empirical, of course, but the attention it expresses is a priori and one and the same with the original and transcendental apperception.]

We dream up this objective world in order to be able to explain the coincidences, e.g., it is no (mere) coincidence that the ice follows upon the water at the advent of cold air, for the cold air causes the water to turn into ice, for ice is merely frozen water. Etc.*

[* For otherwise, on their own and as specters of the eye (or sense organ in general) there is no more connection between ice and water than there is between a piece of gold and water or the faces of the American presidents carved into Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.]

The general idea (of Kant) is something like this: we are intrigued by coincidences (due to the a priori [preceding] categorical frame of mind). These coincidences are subjective, of course (being in our minds as we notice such otherwise disparate things as sun light and the warmth of a stone, for example), that arise in the space and time of our own sightings, e.g., I, Philip, happen to notice (= contain temporarily in one consciousness) the ice is now (envisagement of time) in the same place (envisagement of space) where the water was earlier (time again). This then, as I stated, leads us to take a second look (which is now an a priori [attentive] consciousness) to make sure that what we think is a coincidence is really such, e.g., the next afternoon (as I fabricate this example for our purposes here, and which is quite plausible) we note the location of water (or we even put some water outside deliberately for the sake of an experiment) and then follow that up with a sighting of the cold air coming in and the presence of ice in that same location.

This is an a priori sighting (relatively speaking), even though the content is empirical and thus arises a posteriori, for we are now conscious (in our experiment or second look) of what we are doing and sighting for the express purpose of making sure, e.g., making sure that the water is replaced in the very same place by the ice and upon the advent of the cooler air.

The unification of all three is by means of the category of causality, i.e., in order to bind the transformation of the wqater into the ice by the cold, we hold them in a connection of time, namely: first the water, then the cold and then the ice, and thus devise a rule of necessitation such that it would not be able to proceed otherwise, for example: first the ice and then the cold and then the water.*

[* This is an example of a merely empirical causality, however, for it is possible that we will find an exception someday; but this possibility does not mean that the law of cold solidifying water is faulty or not a law, but rather means that an explanation for any exception (which is called a deviation) must be forthcoming, e.g., that the water is salty, or is moving, or some such. Empirical necessity is valid necessity, but allows for other, intervening causes; as opposed to the categorical necessity of the connections of the objective world in general (as we have dreamed it up) such that there cannot be an exception to this [categorical] necessity.**]

[** If there were even the possibility of an exception from the universal necessitation of all specters (objects on our retinas and other sense organs), then that would mean that we could never be sure in any given situation whether this were the exception, and so therefore would not be authorized to insist upon that necessitation, and so would be willing to settle for a Humean sort of coincidence, and all science would collapse and, along with it, all experience.]

Now we can see (or at least "feel") where Kant is taking us here. By virtue of the extreme universalism of our insistence of connection, we leave no room for any freedom, and so freedom is effectively and necessarily excluded from all science, for it simply cannot be an object of experience and of sighting. We would have to have an intellectual envisagement (or what I call: an intuition) in order to be able to sight freedom, for all that ever appears to us is the necessitation of nature.

Before going on to a reconciliation of nature (a fundamental demand of our understanding and a necessary presupposition for all experience) and the possibility (and not speaking here of any fact) of freedom, it will worthwhile to certify Kant's thesis with regard to need of the categories, given the synthetic nature of experience and of all our empirical knowledge. I will use an example to exemplify what Kant is referring to in the TDB.26.3 through 4.*

[* The fifth paragraph I have already discussed above with regard to the notion of freezing of water into ice.]

Time and space are forms of our envisagement. For it is by means of them that I am able to see such things as an object being apart from me and to my left or right, or further removed and behind another, closer object, or being now present or now absent from my sight. These envisagements provide us with the first inklings of knowledge in the form of the sightings and coincidences of those sightings.*

[* Some of what we see we necessitate through the notion of coincidence. For example I know (or think I know) that the auto produces the honking, and yet I hear the honking and then see the automobile; but then I ascribe that to a coincidence, namely I happened (which is all the detail and precedence I need in a local situation) to hear the honking while I was looking at the flowers on a lawn, and then I turned to look at or for the honking and saw the automobile.**]

[** It is profitable in our studies of Kant to realize that so much of our everyday world is dependent upon such stories as these, e.g., I hear the car horn, but by the time I had turned around the car had vanished around the corner and all I could do was to hear the motor and squeal of the tires. All of this is originally fantasy, of course, but which we need in order to provide ourselves with the objective, external world, in order then in turn to be able to demote our specters (retinal and sense objects) from things on their own to merely images and views of these real things which occasion the specters. A fantastic story indeed that must have warmed the heart of Kafka as he then sought to go further into the psyche of someone (as I have sought to do on my web site with the story of Captain Hook) and to describe the world that he (the man-turned-into-beetle in Kafka's Metamorphose) needed to invent in order to make sense out of his condition and to avoid considering himself as insane.]

Now space and time are not merely the forms of our envisagements, but envisagements (as objects) on their own. I know that the things that I see in space are not in real space the way that I see them; for, for example, I see that my finger, when it touches my nose, splits into two ghost fingers. I account for this phenomenon by imagining, i.e., dreaming up, an objective, or so-called real, space such that my two eyes could be spying the same, identical finger, but from two slightly different perspectives, and which then my mind unifies (or merges) into a single picture in my head, and it is this unified space in my head that I am able to actually sight (or in which I am able to sight the objects of my perception). And so I must dream up this true space (as I call it) in order to place into it this empirical space of my actual sighting (the space of the split finger standing starkly before my eyes) in order then to be able to derive my actual sightings (the ghost fingers) from this real space and call them a "perspective" of objects in that real space, i.e., the single finger. This is of course entirely synthetic and entirely a priori (for no such space is ever even given to us nor can any such space ever be accessed directly, but only by virtue of the creative [and probably idle] mind of the human, including that of the developing infant).

But now since space, as an object, is seen as infinite and as given, it cannot be the product of the understanding, for the categories express only limitation, e.g., beginning here and going so and coming back to the same place we have encompassed a space which we can call a circle (in the pantomimic drawing of a circle in mid air, or even the empirical drawing on a piece of chalkboard). And yet this (objective) space is synthetic and any synthesis requires the form of the understanding. I shall demonstrate briefly with an example of a proxy of universal and infinite space in what I call an onion. Namely I conceive of a set of two or more spheres, 1. all of the centers of which are the identical point (they are all concentric), and 2. each point of each radius of each of which is either (a) a center, or (b) a point of the surface of one of the spheres, and 3. each radius of each of which is a part of a radius of another of which.*

[* Where "part" is to be understood as less than the "whole" and so where the radius of the largest imaginable one of these spheres is a part of a radius of an even larger sphere.]

Now this object is thought of (in the definition) as given, and yet cannot be visualized, except partially as a construction which is on-going. And it is of this sort that we first come to think of space as infinite.*

[* Time is easily depictable as a straight line, each part of which is the second of three equal parts of which, and each point of which exists sequentially in the same way as we would draw the line, e.g., from left to right and going through the more left points before getting to the righter ones. This is an expression of the proxy of time that Kant alludes to in TDB.24, where the universal comprehension of time cannot be imagined by the blind (or so it would seem) and must be fathomed by reference to such a line as I have described here, and by means of which we can allot our own, subjective valid times of our waking and our sleeping and otherwise preoccupations (when time is of no value or existence or meaning), e.g., where the blind must imagine a time between getting into bed and then later (merely subsequently) getting out of bed.]

And then Kant goes on to show (in TDB.26.4) that the categories are necessary for perception and, of course, for recognition. In the same way that the elements of a pantomimic circle described in the air are unified through a special envisagement which is conducted through time and with the category of accumulation of a total as the group of elements, in that same way the elements of a house are comprehended into a total. And likewise then of course (in 26.5) the elements of the freezing of water are found in an perception,which is a careful perusal of these elements, and then, by virtue of the recognition, turned into an experience, all of which is a function, essentially, of nature, which is an invention of the mind, and which is based on, and reflective of, the categorical mind of man.

[It might be good to note here paranthetically the difference between transcendental realism (which is taking the finger as actually composed of two fingers which appear when we take a closer look [which, we commonly say, is the most accurate look]) and which leads to empirical idealism (which means that we can have no determinedly accurate contact with these objects, since they exist apart from us in that way); and transcendental idealism where we take such as the split finger and all objects of sight (and of our senses in general) as existing in our minds and which then is connected with empirical realism where we see that the finger is single and only appears split to a perceiving being, which is the Weltanschauung of the human in general.]

Now we turn our attention to the reconciliation of the possibility of freedom with the fact of the necessitation of nature, i.e., what might be freedom with what is in fact nature, for they are, at first glance and conceptually speaking, quite opposed to each other.

The key to this reconciliation is provided in the conception of the thing on its own and the distinction between transcendental realism and transcendental idealism. Originally the thing on its own is posited in order that we might derive our perceptions and sightings from it, e.g., Hume's famous table is conceived of as given and fixed in order that the smaller and larger tables that he actually spies (as images on his retina) are seen to be images and mere views (subjectively seated perspectives) of that real, independently existing thing on its own. But now this thing on its own is entirely empirical, and this means that it is spectral, and this means that it is not really a thing on its own considered independently of human recognition. It is truly, factually a table (even though we spy only its specter) and necessarily so in order that our specters not be things on their own themselves (where Hume's table would itself get larger and smaller and where our fingers would in fact split into two ghosts as they draw closer to our noses); but it is not a table on its own independently of the human conception. Let's try to make this clear.

The person born blind is deprived of an important element of human recognition, even as the born deaf is. We see that these persons think they are dealing with the things on their own, the sounds and touches in the darkness, and the dances which the deaf imagine so much of our actions to be (and essentially undifferentiated from the dances viewed on a ball room floor or on the ballet stage). Thus we know that there is a real thing on its own (empirical speaking, to be precise) which they think they grasp, but which they in fact do not and indeed by virtue of this deprivation, which they are unable to imagine and thus also not fathom (except negatively as a something which is lacking).

The next step in this progression toward understanding Kant is to bethink ourselves (as persons perfectly endowed with all human sensory capabilities) in a similar position, namely that what we call the table of Hume is accessible in other ways by other senses. What we call the paradoxes of quantum physics might very well become entirely explicable if we could access these other (so far only imagined) senses. So we see that what we call the thing on its own, as an empirical object, is such only from the human standpoint.

But we need to go one step further and imagine that there could be aspects of things which are not sensible in any way and regardless of what sense organ we might (even negatively) conceive of, e.g., X. In other words we are now thinking of aspects of things which are simply not sensible in any way, shape or fashion. These would be intelligible aspects and these would refer to the thing as a true thing on its own, in a transcendental sense, i.e., in a way that is really meaningless and inane for the scientist and human experience, e.g., that the human, or even a leaf of a tree for that matter, might be free of all the necessitation of the empirical world (of science and experience) and yet the effects of this freedom would be perceivable in that world of experience and which would form an integral part of that world of nature.

So then we can at least imagine a being which were free to do whatever he wished, e.g., a leaf that freely decided to fall when it got cold and the wind blew, and not one which had to fall under those circumstances. It would add nothing at all to our knowledge of nature, although it would not contradict nature and experience (which would not be possible given the need for the universal necessitation which perception itself presupposes and requires in order even to exist [for perception is the second look which presupposes that there is a necessary order in the world in order that a second look would even be meaningful]). And so (and particularly with regard to the human) I could say: the human is compelled by the moral law, and indeed develops a bad conscience if he does not act in accordance with that law, and (as I could continue to say) this factor (of concern for this moral law, e.g., the Golden Rule of the Christian) is responsible for much of what we perceive to be human behavior. This assertion the scientist (psychologist) would find very acceptable and would incorporate such behavior into his equations of behavior as well as try to explain how such might arise to consciousness in the first place (through the effect of parents, upbringing, etc.), but without ever having to depart from the necessitation which he must necessarily presuppose in order to have even the first experienced of any kind*

[* For example (and as an extreme and hopefully convincing example): I take a "second look" to find some object which is supposed to be present but which I did not see on my first scan of the space (the desk, the room, or what have you), and then spy the object and conclude that I had looked hurriedly the first time and therefore overlooked it in my haste, all of which is based on the admittedly invented notion that the object did not just suddenly come into existence which, I tell myself (for purposes of contrast), is the conception of Peter Pan's Captain Hook, a fellow I now conceive of to hold such fantastic notions, but which, upon closer consideration, are not nearly as fantastic as the notion of having over looked something. Kafka certainly grasped the truth of this very, very Kantian notion, and which Kant finally seized upon to refute the superficial empiricism of my fellow Scot, David Hume.]

An aid to this thinking might be provided via John Locke's example of the glass man, the man who thought he was made of glass. He was conscious of acting always in accordance with his understanding of himself and all his behavior was quite rational and understandable, e.g., when he would cry out to someone: "please be careful in carrying that tray around me so that you don't let things fall on me and break me; for, you see, I am made of very brittle glass."

In a like manner we can imagine a person acting under a presupposition of his freedom such that his actions in the spectral world would be effects of this freedom, of his freely made decisions (at least as far as he were concerned), and yet at the same time be thoroughly enmeshed in the continuing tramp of the specters under the necessitation of nature. And so without having at all established freedom or even the possibility of freedom, Kant has shown that if there were such a freedom, it would not conflict with nature, for we would be considering the human from two different perspectives, once as a element and part of a universal fabric of nature (where his behavior would be consistent with his empirical character*) and which is all the scientist demands, and yet which (empirical character), at the same time, the libertarian (if I may be permitted that term) insists is itself merely the specter of the intelligible character (of freedom) and thus manifests it in the context of human existence, i.e., the empirical character is therefore not merely a pattern of behavior but rather a code of conduct (or at least includes elements of that), for it is a (consciously) freely chosen action, i.e., is independent of the demands of the inclinations and empirical drives.

[* This empirical character would be dreamed up by the scientist in order that the behavior of the individual might become patterned and thus derived from it, e.g., that the individual complies with moral law to a certain extent, which would be a measure of the strength of this factor, etc.]

Kant has now established a(n albeit) negative place for freedom, namely in the conception of a capacity for functioning independently of the dictates of nature, although he has not by any means presented a positive and thus fruitful conception of that same freedom. For this we must now turn to his Critique of Practical Reason.

[This completes the sketch of the essay to the point of the consideration of Kant's moral philosophy.]

[In my journal of 9/28/98 I make a lot of progress in going all the way through Kant's moral thinking to the very point of entry into the revealed Christian faith. I was quite surprise at how well this all went together in the space of an hour or so. I think I have now the outline of the entire essay, although I will have to decide if the consideration of rational religion and Wesley's conception of the Christian life should be included, or whether they should make up yet another essay. By the way, the essential components of the Wesleyan work are already available on my home page in the Wesley section, and especially the Golden Rule essay and the letters to the Wesleyan Christian Advocate, but in other essays also. A systematic presentation is yet to be formulated, but which I do not think now will be overly difficult.]