Kants Attack on the Amphiboly of the Concepts of Reflection :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

Kant's Attack on the Amphiboly of the Concepts of Reflection ABSTRACT: In the neglected 'Amphiboly of the Concepts of Reflection,' Kant introduces a new transcendental activity, Transcendental Deliberation (Kemp Smith calls it 'Transcendental Reflection'). It aims to determine to which faculty a representation belongs and does so by examining the representation's relationships to other representations. This enterprise yields some powerful ideas. (1) Some of the relationships studied have great interest, numerical identity in particular. Indeed, seeing Kant discuss it here, one wonders why he did not include it in the Table of Categories. (2) Kant gives a solid argument for the necessity of a sensible element in representations, something not found elsewhere in the Transcendental Analytic. In the neglected Amphiboly of the Concepts of Reflection, Kant introduces a new transcendental activity, Transcendental Deliberation (Kemp Smith calls it Transcendental Reflection). It aims to determine to which faculty a representation belongs and does so by examining the representation's relationships to other representations. This enterprise yields some powerful ideas. (1) Some of the relationships studied have great interest, numerical identity in particular. Indeed, seeing Kant discuss it here, one wonders why he did not include it in the Table of Categories. (2) Kant gives a solid argument for the necessity of a sensible element in representations, something not found elsewhere in the Transcendental Analytic.The Transcendental Analytic of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason ends with a little appendix on what Kant calls the Amphiboly of the Concepts of Reflection. As an appendix, the passage is more than a little curious. The point that Kant eventually gets around to defending, that we are aware only of appearances, not things as they are in themselves, is familiar, but the argument that Kant now gives for it is entirely new and so interesting that one wonders why Kant relegated it to an appendix. Second, the passage introduces an important new concept, namely, numerical identity. For the first time in the Critique so far, Kant treats the notion separately and gives it important work to do. The Table of Categories does not so much as mention numerical identity, even though the concept would seem to be at least as good a candidate for categorial status as, say, modality. Third, the passage argues for the claim that knowledge requires sensible intuitions as well as concepts. Prior to the Amphiboly Kant has of course asserted this many times — but try to find an argument! Here he offers one.