Browsing by Subject "synteesi"

This thesis deals with Kant’s doctrine of apperception, as presented in the Transcendental Deduction, in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. The research question examined in the thesis is to what extent and how the doctrine of apperception can be interpreted as analytic, and to what extent and how it can be interpreted as synthetic. The aim of the thesis is to show that the doctrine can be interpreted as inherently ambiguous, between an analytic account which presents a conceptual analysis of a unified subject’s activities of cognition, and a synthetic account which explains how the subject’s unity of consciousness, or the identity of apperception, is possible in the first place. This is achieved through (1) an examination of Allison’s interpretation of apperception, (2) close readings of the relevant passages in the Critique of Pure Reason, and (3) an interpretation of Hegel’s reading of Kant in Faith & Knowledge. It is argued in the thesis that an accurate interpretation of the doctrine of apperception must include accounts of both its analytic and synthetic dimensions. The proposed view is that the synthetic account explains how the analytic account is itself possible. So, on the one hand, it follows analytically from the thought of a single subject’s thinking an object, as containing diverse representations, that the subject synthesizes those diverse representations as an identical subject. On the other hand, Kant sometimes seems to think that the identity of apperception must itself be produced by synthesis and consciousness of it. This provides the basis for a synthetic account of apperception, expressed by Hegel’s view that the doctrine of apperception implies an identity of subject and object. In the thesis, Hegel’s view is interpreted to mean that insofar as the identity of apperception must be produced through synthesis and consciousness of synthesis, the distinction of subject and object cannot be justified, when it comes to that synthesis and consciousness of it. The view advanced in the thesis is that the process through which consciousness becomes unified, relative to synthesis, is a necessary condition of the analysis of the unified subject’s activities of cognition. Moreover, it is held that the ambiguity which gives rise to this view is inherent to the doctrine of apperception. So, although Allison’s analytic interpretation presents a generally plausible and internally consistent account of apperception, it is not fully supported by the text. Consequently, to avoid begging the question, a synthetic interpretation must also be given. In this thesis, such an interpretation is formulated on the basis of an interpretation of Hegel’s reading of Kant.