Kant's View of the Mind and Consciousness of Self - Book Report/Review Example

 Kant's View of the Mind and Consciousness of Self “Metaphysics, epistemology is the act of unifying or combining the manifold representations in intuition into one consciousness or one cognition. It is the act of combining intuitions and concepts. The forms of sensible intuition, space and time, organise appearances in experience to a certain extent, but this is not enough. The intuited manifold still needs to be connected and put together. This is the job of synthesis, which is the main act of the understanding or the unity of apperception. Since this act is logical, not physical, Kant calls it intellectual synthesis.”(Synthesis….) Acts of synthesis take place a priori, not in the empirical time-series, and they become additions to the experience accumulated here-before. Kant terms it as transcendental synthesis. Synthesis plays an important role in knowledge by permitting intuition to gain entry into concepts and provides them with contents that they would otherwise do not possess. Synthesis is the harbinger of knowledge; without it nothing can be known or thought. But some critics are in disagreement with Kant. They argue that his detailed account of synthesis is an issue of avoidable transcendental psychology and it is unsuitable to tackle important logical or metaphysical problems. Kant states, “By synthesis, in its most general sense, I understand the act of putting together different representations, and of grasping what is manifold in them in one knowledge.”(Synthesis….) The conclusions of the Kantian Synthesis as stated by him are: “The ideas are in the domain of practical reason; I had to set limits to knowledge in order to make place for faith. Reason and Ideas as regulative ideals – guides in our infinite search: they are not object of knowledge but goals to pursue.” (PDF] Chapter-8….) Farster (2000) writes, “In its Preface, Kant had indeed emphasised that any genuine science must exhibit both apodictic certainty of its fundamental laws and systematic unity of its cognitions.”(4) If anyone understood the need for correction in Kant’s philosophy, it was Kant himself. He initiated the correction process to fix a relatively minor problem with his philosophy but the ongoing reflections compelled him to correct most of the key problems of his critical philosophy. A series of issues sought his intervention and were revised in the light of his new experiences, findings and conclusions. He found himself in an entirely new platform and visualised them in fresh light. Howard Caygill (1995) writes, “….the general Kantian problem of synthesis is with its connotations of freedom, spontaneity and finitude. This aspect was developed in the systematic logics of German idealists—Fichte, Schelling and above all Hegel. In the science Logic Hegel draws out the ambiguities of the Kantian account of the concept, showing that its attempt to reconcile logic and epistemology is informed by ontology, and that its equivocal relationship between concept and intuition may be analysed in terms of the relationship between universality, particularity and individuality.”(121) Kant realised the shortcomings in his earlier writings on various subjects and readied himself for the onerous task of revising theories like the objective validity of the categories, the nature of time and space, the rejection of idealism, the dynamical theory of matter, the theory of the self and its relevant agent, the issues related to living organisms, the concept of God and the doctrine of the practical postulates, the common meeting ground of the theoretical and practical reason, the idea of transcendental reality and its philosophical implications etc Kant was able to arrive at the same conclusion, which in the normal parlance is extensively used in political philosophy, ‘unity inn diversity.’(This phrase is often used by the politicians in their campaigning during elections in countries that consist of many ethnic/language/religious groups) Kant had reached the threshold of a new understanding. All the problems, that confronted him throughout his illustrious writing career, were coming to a close, as for their inter-related confusions and contradictions. He brought them to a coherent and tangible solution and thus integrated them into a single philosophical solution. He had reached the final frontier and found the common fountain from which all philosophies spring forth. Kant thus provided fresh insights into his own earlier writings and gave logical explanations about the extraordinary continuity and inner dynamics. He led the thinkers to the final synthesis of his transcendental philosophy. Epistemology--introduction “Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies knowledge. It attempts to answer the basic question: what distinguishes true (adequate) knowledge from false (inadequate) knowledge. Practically, this question translates into issues of scientific methodology…..When we look at the history of epistemology, we can discern a clear trend, in spite of the confusion of many seemingly contradictory positions.” (The following….)The initial theories emphasised the absolute, the permanency aspect, but the later theories accepted the situation-dependence, its evolution and its ongoing interference with the world and its objects and subjects. It came to be recognised as the one of the solid support for the new sciences of cognition, that took the shape of information processing approach to psychology, later took the field of artificial intelligence, computer programs followed, and the infinite efforts continued to mimic a human’s capacity to use knowledge in a most advanced way. Some backgrounder information is necessary to study and understand Kant. Kant did not commence his big leap from a blank spot. He had solid prior premises to look into and investigate, before articulating his theories. He had opportunities to examine the works of Plato and Aristotle that gave him much reasoned information. “In Plato's view, knowledge is merely an awareness of absolute, universal Ideas or Forms, existing independent of any subject trying to apprehend to them. Though Aristotle puts more emphasis on logical and empirical methods for gathering knowledge, he still accepts the view that such knowledge is an apprehension of necessary and universal principles.” (The following….)After lots of churning process in epistemology, two alternatives dominated philosophy--Empiricism which sees knowledge as the product of sensory perception and rationalism which sees it as the product of rational reflection. The reflection-correspondence theory: The experimental sciences are making a rapid stride. Empiricism is implemented on a continual basis in these areas explicitly or implicitly. According to this theory, the brain and mind occupy the pivotal position and knowledge results from a sort of mapping or reflection of external objects, with the aid or sensory organs, and assisted by different instruments of observation. Kantian synthesis of rationalism and empiricism developed during the same period. “According to Kant, knowledge results from the organisation of perceptual data on the basis of inborn cognitive structures, which he calls "categories". Categories include space, time, objects and causality. This epistemology does accept the subjectivity of basic concepts, like space and time, and the impossibility to reach purely objective representations of things-in-themselves. Yet the a priori categories are still static or given.” (The following….)The second stage of development of epistemology is known as pragmatic. This continued to dominate in early twentieth century approaches, like logical positivism, conventionalism, and the "Copenhagen interpretation" of quantum mechanics. This philosophy is still accepted in the most recent findings in cognitive science and artificial intelligence. In cognitive science and artificial intelligence, what you do is important; but how you do, what you do is more important. The procedure that maximally simplifies problem-solving becomes acceptable. No model can be perfect. No model can meet all the requirements by capturing information in its totality. The alternative is to carry on with the available models, notwithstanding their contradictions and deficiencies. Each model has certain merits and de-merits. Their suitability depends upon contingencies and demands of the situations. A particular model may be suitable for finding solution for a particular problem. The only criterion is that the model should address the question in an equitable way, so as not to cause further confusion. The solution should not give rise to fresh problems or create confusion. “The pragmatic epistemology does not give a clear answer to the question where knowledge or models come from. There is an implicit assumption that models are built from parts of other models and empirical data on the basis of trial-and-error complemented with some heuristics or intuition. A more radical point of departure is offered by constructivism.” (The following….) Constructivism begins from ground zero. It supposes that all knowledge is acquired from scratch by the subject of knowledge. “There are no 'givens', neither objective empirical data or facts, nor inborn categories or cognitive structures. The idea of a correspondence or reflection of external reality is rejected.” (The following….) Constructivism thus poses instant problems. Lack of connection between models and the issues they represent may lead to relativism, which then merits all the models as equal with no formula to differentiate true knowledge from false knowledge. In such philosophies, knowledge has nothing to do with imaginary ‘external reality’ or environment. These approaches move with the changing knowledge, emphasise its relative character but claim that they are absolutists but their description of construction process is ambiguous, inaccurate and incomplete. They are unable to address to any issue in its finality. Different forms of epistemology are broad in outlook. “Here it is assumed that knowledge is constructed by the subject or group of subjects in order to adapt to their environment in the broad sense. That construction is an on-going process at different levels, biological as well as psychological or social. Construction happens through blind variation of existing pieces of knowledge, and the selective retention of those new combinations that somehow contribute most to the survival and reproduction of the subject(s) within their given environment.” (The following….) Memetics Recent approach on the subject of epistemology is more radical. The view veers round to the point that knowledge is independent of all other external factors and pursues goals of its own. This proposition assumes that knowledge is transmitted from one subject to another, without any special effort on the part of the transferor and the transferee. Knowledge does not depend on any single individual for its survival and continuance. Knowledge thus transmitted or replicated is known as ‘meme’. The death of an individual doesn’t affect ‘meme’ as far as knowledge is concerned. This is the stand according to evolutionary epistemology. Meme spreads quickly to other carriers, the meme will proliferate, and that doesn’t mean however that the knowledge thus spreads may be inadequate. Due to some other progressive developments the knowledge may not survive at all. The knowledge may remain acceptable, even though its predictions may prove wrong. The new carriers must see some inherent appeal in it. So this is the ultimate position, the subject of knowledge has lost its primacy, and knowledge has acquired the force of its own, with appropriate goals and styles to find its own development. This could be the area of innumerable superstitions, irrational systems of beliefs, fads that find widespread acceptance all over the globe, and the speed with which they find acceptance with the humankind is amazing. Kant's View of the Mind and Consciousness of Self “Even though Kant himself held that his view of the mind and consciousness were inessential to his main purpose, some of his ideas came to have an enormous influence on his successors. Ideas central to his view are now central to cognitive science…. Many of his ideas about the consciousness of self and related issues have not been influential.” (Kant’s view….)Let me now focus on Immanuel Kant's (1724-1804) work on the mind and consciousness of self and issues related to the subject. A section of the commentators believe that his views on mind depend upon his idealism, which Kant mentions as transcendental idealism. Others argue that what Kant said about mind and consciousness can be detached from his idealism. The issue that demands attention is, his ideas on epistemology that led him to articulate his ideas about mind, was a response to Hume. “Three ideas define the basic shape (‘cognitive architecture’) of Kant's model and one its dominant method. 1. The mind is complex set of abilities (functions). (As Meerbote 1989 and many others have observed, Kant held a functionalist view of the mind almost 200 years before functionalism was officially articulated in the 1960s by Hilary Putnam and others.) 2. The functions crucial for mental, knowledge-generating activity are spatio-temporal processing of, and application of concepts to, sensory inputs. Cognition requires concepts as well as percepts.3.These functions are forms of what Kant called synthesis. Synthesis (and the unity in consciousness required for synthesis) is central to cognition.”(Kant’s view….) These ideas are important part of the foundation of cognitive science. Kant’s reliance on his transcendental arguments was more than just explanations. He argued that he was able to get priori (experience independent) knowledge out of them. While arguing his viewpoints Kant was articulating a tripartite doctrine of the priori. As he scrutinised the functioning of the mind, Kant asserted that mind and its knowledge had a priori origins. They must be in the mind, before the process of experiencing by an individual. Kant articulated that transcendental arguments were a priori or tendered the a priori in all three ways. When the merit of introspection was questioned by the thinkers about a century ago, the alternative approach accepted was this approach. Notwithstanding its non-empirical roots in Kant, this is the important method used by experimental cognitive scientists even now. Kant's Critical Project and How the Mind Fits Into It “The major works so far as Kant's views on the mind are concerned are the monumental Critique of Pure Reason and his little, late Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, first published in 1798. Kant aimed among other things to, a) Justify conviction that physics, like mathematics, is a body of necessary and universal truth b) Insulate religion, including belief in immortality, and free will from the corrosive effects of this very same science.”(Kant’s view….) Kant was not an atheist. He accepted unconditionally God, freedom and immortality. His reservation was linking science to them. That may lead to doubts and to the denial of their existence. He was of the firm view that these subjects were beyond the scope of science; science was incapable of proving their existence. He denied knowledge to make room for faith as he understood the importance of faith in the life of a human being. Kant “held that for our experience, and therefore our minds, to be as they are, the way that our experience is tied together must reflect the way that physics says that objects in the world must be tied together. Seeing this connection also tells us a lot about what our minds must be like.”(Kant’s view….) Transcendental Aesthetic “Transcendental Aesthetic is about what space and time must be like, and how we need to handle them, if our experience is to have the spatial and temporal properties that it has.”(Kant’s view….)The necessary conditions for experience according to Kant are transcendental. Therefore, it goes without saying that the strategy of proceeding by trying to find answers to those questions is the strategy of transcendental arguments. At this juncture Kant runs into rough weather. He asserts: “that whatever it is that impinges on us from the mind-independent world does not come located in a spatial or a temporal matrix, not even a temporal one. Rather, it is the mind that organises this ‘manifold of raw intuition’, as he called it, spatially and temporally. The mind has two pure forms of intuition, space and time, built into it to allow it to do so. (‘Pure’ means ‘not derived from experience’.)”(Kant’s view….) Metaphysical Deduction The Aesthetic is about the conditions of experience. Kant goes ahead to analyse and deduce the implications of this logic for the conceptual structures within which all experience and thoughts must originate. In the mind, according to Kant, there is not one central movement but two, that occurring in the transcendental Aesthetic and the other in the Metaphysical Deduction. One is to draw inferences from experience and the other is deduction down from conceptual structures relating to the most abstract kind. Transcendental Deduction The duality as stated above took Kant to the important question of right. What right an individual has to apply the Categories that are not gained from experience, to the contents of experience? The important issue that crops up before Kant is, how is that the world as we experience conforms to our logic? Kant tries to grapple with the situation by stating about objective deductions and the subjective deductions. “The objective deduction is about the conceptual and other cognitive conditions of having representations of objects. The subjective deduction is about what the mind, the “subjective sources” of understanding.”(Kant’s view…..) Kant argues this issue to the finality and chisels a threefold doctrine of synthesis, which is one of the cornerstones of Kant’s model of the mind. He states, all our experiences have objects; they are about something specific. The objects are discrete and unified particulars. To have access to such particulars, the mind must arrange them based on sensible input. For this purpose, the mind needs to do three types of synthesis. “It must generate temporal and spatial structure (Synthesis of Apprehension in Intuition). It must associate spatio-temporally structured items with other spatio-temporally structured items (Synthesis of Reproduction in the Imagination). And it must recognise items using concepts, the Categories in particular (Synthesis of Recognition in a Concept).”(Kant’s view….) Kant's View of the Mind Kant’s mind is wavering about his views. His views are strong, but not good enough as for consistency on the empirical study of the mind. The empirical method suggested by Kant for psychology was introspection. By introspection, going by the inner sense, cannot be studied scientifically due to five reasons. They are: With one universal dimension, distribution of time, what is contained in the inner sense cannot be quantified. Second, the introspective individual is the sole judge to distinguish one item from the other; there are no real distinctions amongst the items themselves. Third, such items cannot be segregated and kept separate and it is not possible to get connected to them at will. Synthesis The points made in the above discussion, indicate the anxiety coupled with seriousness of Kant to arrive at synthesis of his views, as for the issue before the mind for handling of space and time. His doctrine of synthesis assumes importance and it cannot be understood without the points mentioned in the above discussion. When the issues and views handled by him began to overlap each other and their understanding became too complicated even for Kant, he resorted to synthesis. He said, ““Concepts without intuitions are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind” Experience means both precepts and concepts. Even for discrimination and analysis, we need information. Not only that, we need organised information. The act of synthesis helps the process of organisation. By act of synthesis Kant means, grasping the multiplicity of views through a common knowledge, but putting different representations together. If the doctrine of space and time is the first major part of Kant’s model of the mind, the doctrine of synthesis is the second. “Kant claimed, as we saw earlier, that three kinds of synthesis are required to organise information, namely apprehending in intuition, reproducing in imagination, and recognising in concepts. Each of the three kinds of synthesis relates to a different aspect of Kant's fundamental duality of intuition and concept. Synthesis of apprehension concerns raw perceptual input, synthesis of recognition concerns concepts, and synthesis of reproduction in imagination allows the mind to go from the one to the other.” (Kant’s view….) Kant also articulates about three fundamental faculties of the mind. They are province of Sensibility, the province of Understanding and the province of Imagination. The last one has much less settled position in comparison to the other two. “The first two, apprehension and reproduction, are inseparable; one cannot occur without the other. The third, recognition, requires the other two but is not required by them. It seems that only the third requires the use of concepts……. Kant tries to save the universality of the objective deduction by arguing that all three kinds of syntheses are required to represent objects.”(Kant’s view….) Acts of synthesis relate to intuitions. Intuitions are passive experiences. In the classical sense intuitions are totally different from sense-data. The act of becoming conscious of intuitions follows after the acts of synthesis and only by drawing inferences from these acts and not directly. They are more or less comparable to theoretical entities articulated to explain something that we invariably recognise. “What they explain is the non-conceptual element in representations, an element over which we have no control. Intuitions determine how our representations will serve to confirm or refute theories, aid or impede our efforts to reach various goals.”(Kant’s view…..) Synthesis of Apprehension in Intuition The synthesis of apprehension is somewhat paler than the other two. The mind turns conscious of images, while apprehending impressions while taking them into the activity of imagination. Kant tells us that we are able to obtain the type of differentiation we need to take them up only “in so far as the mind distinguishes the time in the sequence of one impression upon another” Kant uses the term ‘impression’ (Eindrucke) rarely; it seems to be in the same camp as ‘appearance’ (Erscheinung) and ‘intuition’ (Anschauung).”(Kant’s view….)Kant stresses that we can become conscious of only idea (new item) at a time. A cluster of ongoing impressions arriving simultaneously would be indistinguishable “for each representation [Vorstellung], in so far as it is contained in a single moment, can never be anything but absolute unity” (Kant’s view….) What Kant means is this --to differentiate one impression from the other, they need to be given separate locations. (Is he referring to the computer technology? Certainly the computers were not there during his time. What is important here is the direction in which Kant was thinking, which has proved to be prophetic!) He mentions about the temporal location, but probably he was contemplating about the spatial location also. The relationship of the Transcendental Aesthetic with synthesis of apprehension is close. Aesthetic mentions about the necessity of the mind having to locate items in time and space. Can mind do that? It is to be noted that at the transcendental level, mind ceases to function; that level can only be reached, when the impressionable mind is totally destroyed. When the thought processes cease, there is no mind at all. Synthesis of Reproduction in Imagination “The synthesis of reproduction in imagination has two elements, a synthesis proper and associations necessary for performing that synthesis. (Kant explicitly treats them as separate on “recognition, reproduction, association, apprehension”. (Kant’s view….) Both begin with appearances. Synthesis of apprehension has located in time. Initially, synthesis of reproductions looks akin to memory, but in reality it is different. Memory and recognition are the jobs of synthesis or recognition that has yet to accrue. Kant’s claim that the categories are required for knowledge looks quite acceptable. Finally, “For experiences to have objects, acts of recognition that apply concepts to spatio-temporally ordered material are required. Representation requires recognition. Moreover, objects of representation share a general structure. They are all some number of something, they all have qualities, and they all have an existence-status.”(Kant’s view…..) Point of view and Conclusion: The main drawback of Kant and that of his admirers and critics is that they try to compare the mind-related experiences with the experiences that transcend the mind. Transcendental experiences can only be experienced by the concerned individual. They cannot be explained in words to the final detail for the benefit of others. It is incorrect to compare the inner world experiences of an individual with body-mind-intellect related experiences. No useful purpose will also be served by hair-splitting arguments about the mind related experiences and actions. For example, an individual breathes about 23000 times in a day. Each breath is an action, and it is bound to create the reaction, as per the action-reaction theory. No dispute exists between the spiritualists and the scientists as far as the action-reaction theory are concerned. Nor, synthesis of all appearances is possible by adopting pure science-research approach. For example, let us assume that a banyan tree has many thousands of leaves. On observation, one finds that no two leaves are alike in size or shape. Can one ever dissect and analyse the reason for their varied shapes? Is it possible or is the exercise worth? It is sufficient if the root cause is of their variance and the broad connection are understood. There must be a unified cause and the purpose of the investigation needs to know that cause. When Kant finally talks about the unified consciousness, he is knocking at the portals of spirituality and the procedures of spiritual investigations are entirely different. Is it ever possible to read and understand all the literature that has been published on Kant? For Kant himself it is certainly not possible. In the past five years alone, it is learnt that more than 20,000 new books and new editions by or about Kant have been published. “The endless confusion and conflict that still results from people trying to figure out whether or how science and religion should fit together is deftly avoided by Kant, who can say, for instance, that God and divine creation cannot be part of any truly scientific theory because both involve "unconditioned" realities, while science can only deal with conditioned realities.”(Immanuel Kant….) Kant intelligently sweeps the problem under the carpet, because spirituality is not the domain of the mind, and with all his creativity, reasoning and extraordinary intelligence, Kant failed to transcend the mind-barrier. So, his investigations have to hit the great road-block that knocks down even the super-intelligent individuals. The path of spirituality, its investigation process is entirely different. The inner-missile of Light (knowledge) has to be fired within, to investigate the extraordinary depths of the human personality. The outer missiles of knowledge have specified range, the range of the inner Light missile, is limitless! ************** Works Cited Caygill, Howard. A Kant dictionary - Google Books Result, 1995 books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0631175350... Farster, Eckart. Kant's Final Synthesis: An Essay on the Opus Postumum; Harvard University Press, June 23, 2000. Immanuel Kant Similar-Retrieved on July 18, 2010 Kant's View of the Mind and Consciousness of Self (Stanford ...by A Brook - First published Mon Jul 26, 2004; substantive revision Mon Oct 20, 2008 © Metaphysics Research Lab, CSLI, Stanford University Similar-Retrieved on July 18, 2010 PDF] Chapter 8 Conclusion: The Kantian Synthesis Similar-Retrieved on July 18, 2010 Synthesis (Kant): The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy …. - Similar-Retrieved on July 18, 2010 The following important theory developed in that period is the Kantian synthesis of rationalism and empiricism. Similar-Retrieved on July 18, 2010 Read More