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Stefanos Tran
Prof Vogel
PHIL 364
22 December 2015
The Transcendental Deduction Explained to Five Year Olds (Not Really)

The problem in the Transcendental Deduction is described in 13 The Principles of any

Transcendental Deduction in which Kant basically says that nothing that has been said about
objects of empirical intuition justifies the application of a priori concepts to them. Objects may
appear to us without their being under the necessity of being related to the functions of
understanding (B122); and appearances might very well be so constituted that the
understanding should not find them to be in accordance with the conditions of its unity (B123).
In Kants own words, the problem is this: how subjective conditions of thought can have
objective validity, that is, can furnish conditions of the possibility of all knowledge of
objects (B122). Kant uses the term objective validity in relation to judgements. A judgement has
objective validity if its predicate is necessarily true of all its objects, if it has strict universality.

The solution to this problem is addressed in 14 Transition to the Transcendental

Deduction of the Categories. The general problem of the Deduction is found within the context
of transcendental idealism where it is assumed that appearances make objects possible and not
the other way around. Kant contends that either the object alone must make the representation
possible, or the representation alone must make the object possible (B125). All we have to do
now is ask if there is any possibility that concepts make objects possible in hopes of discovering
whether objects can make thought possible, in the same way that space and time make objects
possible to be sensed.

20 bears the heading "All Sensible Intuitions are subject to the Categories, as Conditions

under which alone their manifold can come together in one Consciousness" in which Kant
briefly summarizes what the Transcendental Deduction is sought to establish. As per the
assignment, I will go through each five sentences of this section and attempt to explain what
Kant means and any Kantian terminology necessary for the understanding of the Deduction as
a whole:
1. "The manifold given in a sensible intuition is necessarily subject to the original synthetic
unity of apperception, because in no other way is the unity of intuition is possible."

When we experience empirical objects, there must be something which we can describe as

the apprehension unity of experience. Kant argues that, there must therefore exist in us an
active faculty for the synthesis of this manifoldIts action, when immediately directed upon
perceptions, I entitle apprehension (A120). For instance, a collection of red sensations must be
taken red as a whole; a sequence of sound sensations must be taken as a sound of various pitches.
Kant contends, however, that the apprehension of this unity cannot be a result of the experience
per se. We have already agreed on the fact that the sensory data which we receive externally must
possess some kind of order or form but this order or form will only be relevant in terms of the
subjects cognition if the subject is capable of apprehending it as such, and this apprehension of
the form must be something more than merely attributing the form as inherent in the sensory
data. In 15, Kant says that if the combination (conjuctio) of a manifold in general can never
come to us through the senses, and cannot, therefore, be already contained in the pure form of
sensible intuition (B129) and thus cannot be given through objects (B130), then this
combination must be a priori. And if this apprehension is beyond the faculty of sensibility then it
must be of understanding. Kant calls this sort of a priori concept unity which he claims that it

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is the most minimal form that we must discover in experience in order for it to be cognized by the
subject. Combination is representation of the synthetic unity of the manifold (B131). It is called
synthetic because it involves synthesizing or combining representations.
2. "But that act of understanding by which the manifold of given representations (be they
intuitions or concepts) is brought under one apperception, is the logical function of
judgement.

In the Aesthetic, Kant argued that the self is known only as an appearance. The inner

sense is the only way in which I am able to cognize inner objects, myself, by representing them as
being in time. Kant writes, No fixed and abiding self can present itself in this flux of inner
appearances (A107); and that, the empirical consciousness, which accompanies different
representations, is in itself diverse and without relation to the identity of the subject (B133).
Since the self cannot be known empirically, there must be a priori self-consciousness, which Kant
entitles transcendental unity of apperception, a pure original unchangeable
consciousness (A107). In 16 Kant expresses a requirement for the transcendental
apperception:
It must be possible for the I think to accompany all my representations; for
otherwise something would be represented in me which could not be thought at
all, and that is equivalent to saying that the representation would be impossible, or
at least would be nothing to me. (B131-2)
Kant does not mean here that each of my representations must be recollected as being mine but
that each of my representations must be such that it is possible for me to recognize it as mine
when I attempt to recollect them. For this to be possible, it is essential to remove any empirical
content from the a priori representation, otherwise I should have as many-coloured and diverse

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a self as I have representations of which I am conscious (B134). This is why it is necessary to
bring representations under one apperception.
3. "All the manifold, therefore, so far as it is given in a single empirical intuition, is determined
in respect of one of the logical functions of judgement, and is thereby brought into one
consciousness.

Kant argues in the A Deduction, in section 3, The Synthesis of Recognition in a

Concept, that, The mind could never think its identity in the manifoldness of its
representationsif it did not have before its eyes the identity of the act, whereby it subordinates
all synthesis of apprehensionto a transcendental unity, thereby rendering possible their
interconnection (A108); apperception can demonstrate a priori its complete and necessary
identity only in synthesis according to concepts (A112). Kant claims here that it is the object that
makes the subject possible, and not vice versa, through the use of a priori synthesis. The relation
of representations to the subject occurs only in so far as I conjoin one representation with
another, and am conscious of the synthesis of them. Only in so far, therefore, as I can unite a
manifold of given representations in one consciousness, is it possible for me to represent to myself
the identity of the consciousness in [i.e. throughout] these representations (B133).
4. "Now the categories are just these functions of judgement, in so far as they are employed in
determination of the manifold of a given intuition."

In The Clue to the Discovery of Pure Concepts of the Understanding (A66-83,

B91-115), Kant attempts to delineate which particular concepts make human knowledge possible.
These functions of judgement provide a clue to the pure concepts of the understanding. We
employ concepts when we make a judgement and Kant begins by considering what is involved in
thought. The cognitive acts in which concepts are employed are judgements, and judgements

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employ functions of unity, meaning that in judgement a representation is brought into relation
with another to yield a unity. And Kant thinks that there are twelve functions of unity in
judgements and each yields a different kind of unity. The pure concepts of the understanding
must relate to judgements but they must also have content. In order to identify the pure concepts
of the understanding, we must know how they get their content. Kant thinks that we get their
content from pure intuition: The same function which gives unity to the various representations
in a judgement also gives unity to the mere synthesis of various representations in an intuition;
and this unity, in its most general expression, we entitle the pure concept of the
understanding (A79/B105).
5. "Consequently, the manifold in a given intuition is necessarily subject to the categories."

This last sentence I find to be deceptive which is why I think it is best to return to the first

sentence: The manifold given in a sensible intuition is necessarily subject to the original
synthetic unity of apperception, because in no other way is the unity of intuition is possible. If
synthesis is an act, then it must be a feature of the faculty of understanding, not of sensibility. We
have concluded that understanding is the source of a priori concepts, also known as pure concepts
of the understanding, which Kant renamed as the categories. Therefore, a priori synthesis must be
synthesis based on the categories. The same function which gives unity to the various
representations in a judgement also gives unity to the mere synthesis of various representations in
an intuition; and this unity in its most general expression, we entitle the pure concept of the
understanding (B105).