Somers-Hall, (2.2), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘2.2 Background: Kant’s Three Syntheses of Time’, summary

by Corry Shores
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[The following is summary. All boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my typos and other distracting mistakes. Somers-Hall is abbreviated SH and Difference and Repetition as DR.]

Summary of

Henry Somers-Hall

Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition:
An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide

Part 1
A Guide to the Text

 

Chapter 2. Repetition for Itself

2.2 Background: Kant’s Three Syntheses of Time
[Further Introductory Material For Ch.2]

Brief summary:

Kant has three syntheses of time by which object representations are formed. As (1) our senses receive sense data, (2) our imagination constructs the pieces into wholes, by means of (3) the unities of our understanding’s concepts belonging to those wholes. [On the first level (sensibility), we grab onto a chunk of present moments, thereby synthesizing the flowing present. On the second level (imagination), we constitute the past in memory. And on the third level (understanding), we have conceptual structures that allow us to anticipate forthcoming impressions, thereby synthesizing the future.] The foundation for all synthetic unity, especially the unity of moments separated by time, is the unity of the subjectivity that is conscious of those moments. The syntheses of objectivities take the subject-predicate conceptual form of judgment, and thus this is a “representational” system.

 

Summary

[Recall what we said about incongruent counterparts in section 0.6. We looked at the idea that a conception of the spatial relations between something’s parts is not enough to determine it in reality. For example, think of the sort of glove that is the same whether it is palm up or palm down. The spatial relations between the parts, on the conceptual level, is not enough to determine which will be the left hand glove and which will be the right hand glove. Of course such gloves are made for both, which makes the example less clear. In fact, the example in SH’s rendition, which is faithful to the Kant text, has us  imagine a hand. But as we noted, hands can be determined as right or left solely by the spatial relations of the parts. The left hand is the one that when looking at the palm, the thumb is to the left of the fingers beside it. So some interpreters use the example of a glove. But perhaps this example only works if the gloves were made so that it does not matter which hand they belong to. (Consider latex gloves for example.) For such gloves, their determination of left or right is a variable, and so they might not exemplify the concept Kant is conveying. At any rate, perhaps this is important for the philosophical point we are drawing here. SH writes:]

We saw in relation to the argument from incongruent counterparts (0.6) that for Kant there was a fundamental difference between sensibility (intuition in Kant’s terms) and the understanding.
(SH 58)

[So perhaps the idea here is that the uni-handed glove’s right or left-handedness cannot be inherent to the conceptual relations of its parts, but it is only determinable by means of the faculty of intuition which may sense the glove being on someone’s right or left hand. But I am unsure.] What we learned from this fundamental difference between sensibility and understanding is that the way our faculty of understanding organizes the world and the way objects are presented in space differ in kind. But now we must explain how these fundamentally different faculties can relate to one another. What is needed then is a synthesis of the representations of our sensibility (intuitions) and our understanding (concepts) [with both intuitions and concepts being manifolds that each on their own need to be synthesized]. [In that synthetic process, the concept will be matched with the intuitions, such that we may say, ‘this (thing we are looking at) is an x’. Perhaps that is what SH means here:]

Kant defines synthesis as ‘the act of putting different representations together, and of grasping what is manifold in them in one act of knowledge’ (Kant 1929: A77/B109). As we can see, this model of synthesis is very closely related to judgement, and an act of judging is this conjunction of what is manifold in one single act (A is B).
(SH 58)

[So since our automatic syntheses take the form of judgment, that means our judgments will accord with the world. There might be some other point here, however.]

Kant’s essential claim is that the judgements we make about the world seem to accord with it because the world of experience is itself constituted by a series of syntheses by the same faculties, but operating in a transcendental manner, that is, prior to our conscious experience of the world. Because of this parallel between our judgements about the world and its constitution, the model Kant uses for synthesis is judgement.
(SH 58)

[I am not certain, but I think the idea in the following is that if we only could avail ourselves of sensibility (intuitions), without the help of understanding (concepts), then we would not be sensing a world of objects. However, we see more than mere appearances, more than mere variations of color in our visual stream for example. So there is something that is unifying the sense elements. But it does so in accordance with different objectivities, which are conceptually different. We do not see a world of the same object or of objects generically. Thus there is not just conceptual unity at work but there are also different concepts as well.]

Kant’s solution to the difficulty of the relation of the faculties involves arguing that conceptual thought plays a necessary role in experience. Whereas perception simply requires intuition, experience also involves the notion that we experience a world of objects. Now, when we look at our experience of the world, Kant argues, the notion of an object is not directly given in sensible intuition. Rather, our experience of a world made up of things – instead of, for instance, sense-data – presupposes a conception of an object, or object-hood. The question of the deduction can therefore be reformulated as: what is it that allows us to experience a world of objects rather than simply appearances? The claim that the transcendental deduction makes is that it is the understanding – which | is the faculty of concepts (or, as we shall see, rules) – which gives us the concept of an object. As such, the understanding plays a necessary role in experience, and the gap between the different faculties has been bridged. (58-59)

And furthermore, “To prove this result, Kant argues that experience rests on a threefold synthesis, which in turn requires us to posit a subject and an object, leading us to introduce the categories as rules which relate to the constitution of objects” (SH 59).

The first synthesis is the ‘synthesis of apprehension.’ The first point SH is making about it is that on the level of sensibility, something synthesizes temporally distinct moments together. Otherwise they might not be able to be combined, if they are not thought to belong together. (59)

The first synthesis is what Kant calls a ‘synthesis of apprehension’. He begins with the claim that if we experienced everything at once, our experience would just be of an undifferentiated unity. For this reason, Kant makes the claim that we have to experience different moments at different times. Just having a collection of moments is not enough, however. We also have to experience these moments as a part of the same temporal sequence. Without some kind of unifying synthesis of time on our part, all we would encounter is a series of moments without relation to one another. Now, Kant claims that our ability to relate particular empirical experiences to one another relies on a deeper, transcendental synthesis. In order to be able to relate different moments in time to one another, we also need to be able to synthesise time itself into a unified structure. This first synthesis therefore ‘[runs] through and [holds] together’ (Kant 1929: A99) the various moments of time in order to allow us to be presented with a unified temporal framework.
(59)

[This “holding together” is not entirely clear to me in SH’s or in Kant’s text. I assume it will be different than the holding together of temporally distinct parts that the reproductive imagination conducts. So it would seem to not be holding together moments perhaps like short-term or ‘working’ memory does. Let us look at the passage in Kant.

Every intuition contains a manifold in itself, which however would not be represented as such if the mind did not distinguish the time in the succession of impressions on one another; for as contained in one | moment no representation can ever be anything other than absolute unity.
(Guyer trans, 228-229)

So let us break this down. We have a succession of impressions. They come at different times. In any one moment, a representation can only be absolute unity. This is not clear. I think it means, in one moment, we do not have enough data to say that what we are seeing are things. For that, we need to know what stays the same from moment to moment. At any rate, the impressions have something to do with intuition. Perhaps they compose intuition, which is made then of a manifold of impressions happening during more than one moment.

Now in order for unity of intuition to come from this manifold (as, say, in the representation of space), it is necessary first to run through and then to take together this manifoldness, which action I call the synthesis of apprehension, since it is aimed directly at the intuition, which to be sure provides a manifold but can never effect this as such, and indeed as contained in one representation, without the occurrence of such a synthesis.

(Guyer trans, 228-229)

So we have a manifold of impressions. Out of it comes the unity of an intuition. We take the example of the representation of space. I will suppose that the impressions would be visual data of what we are looking at. There is a manifold of things we see in one moment, occupying the different places in our field of vision. There is also the temporal manifold of different moments of that same region of space we see during a succession of instants. So for example perhaps, we see that the floor or ground has remained in the same place for some number of moments. First we must “run through and then take together this manifoldness” by means of the synthesis of apprehension. Here is my interpretation, which may or may not agree with SH’s. The synthesis of apprehension is like what has also been called “the specious present” or “the living present”. It is like ‘grasping’ at the fleeting present such that we get in our hands a little bit more of the most present instant. If we only could grasp at instants, we would not even know that time is passing. I am not sure what that would be like. It could be like the world is frozen, or that there is no consciousness since there can never be unities in our consciousness and all conscious acts would be experienced only partially in some instant. At any rate, since we do perceive a flow of time, that means we are perceiving more than an instant. But it is a brief moment. My interpretation is that for Kant, moments are given singly, but apprehended multiply. The apprehended units of time are as brief as the current flowing present, and no longer. In the next step, the reproductive imagination we will see takes various tiny ‘chunks’ of time and retains the ones that have passed out of the window of present time in the current specious present, that is, in the current apprehensive synthesis.]

SH’s next point is that “The synthesis of apprehension allows us to recognise different moments as belonging to the same temporal sequence” (59). [I am not entirely sure I come to the same conclusion. In our interpretation, the synthesis just made units that contain moments of very brief temporal sequences. If that is all SH means, I can see that. But if he means that each ‘chunk’ is shown to be in the same sequence, I am not sure how to explain the way that is so.] Our imagination uses associations to link together representations. So when we see red, we might think of something that is red, like an apple, or to use Kant’s famous but odd example, cinnabar.

(Image from wikipedia)

Empiricist David Hume explains how repetitions of combinations of things causes these associations [more explanation can be found here]. Every time we see cinnabar we also see red. Then when we see red, perhaps we also might think cinnabar. It is a matter of habit that we see these correspondences. We see smoke, we know there is fire. We see dawn. We know the sun will rise. SH says that this is an empirical synthesis, which allows us to anticipate forthcoming moments. SH also says that to contract habits in general we need a second transcendental synthesis [I am not exactly sure why. Perhaps it is the atemporal or transtemporal unity that allows different moments to be combined into one act of consciousness, but I am not sure]. SH then says, ‘however’ and quotes the famous cinnabar passage. [This part is unclear for me. Why the ‘however’? I am not sure how the cinnabar example calls into question anything already said. So perhaps we are just adding something here. The quote says that if cinnabar were sometimes red other times black, each time having properties incompatible with the others, then when seeing red we would not be able to associate it with cinnabar. Kant also says that if on one summer solstice there is warm weather and at other summer solstices cold weather, we also would not be able to form associations. It is not entirely clear what Kant is saying here. One interpretation is that he is saying the world itself, in how it gives itself to us, has certain consistencies. In SH’s wording, it is the empirical imagination that discovers these consistencies. However, it is a transcendental synthesis of production (perhaps then the productive imagination) that somehow both generates those affinities and reproduces past moments associated with them.

In order to be able to reproduce empirically past moments that have an affinity with present moments, we need a transcendental synthesis of production in the imagination to generate those affinities that the empirical imagination discovers.
(60a)

It is not clear to me here how this works. The affinity is discovered by the empirical imagination, than produced by the productive imagination? Why is it being produced if it already was discovered? Perhaps the idea is like this. The empirical imagination is dealing with impressions happening now. It somehow detects something experienced before. Then the productive imagination draws those prior moments out of memory. Or perhaps, the empirical imagination is working both with present and past impressions, and there is also a “transcendental synthesis of production in the imagination” (which may or may not be carried out or provided by a faculty like the productive imagination) that merely provides the “glue” which allows long past moments to remain relatable to current ones. Or perhaps we are to think of contraction here. The reproductive imagination gathers the moments, past and present, but the productive imagination contracts pairings down into general associations. To give an example, we have a full bank of memories. In present experience we see smoke. We have in our memory bank many instances of the pairing smoke-fire. The productive imagination takes all of them, makes them into one potent association, such that when we see smoke now, fire is immediately called to mind. Perhaps he clarifies in the following sentences. He seems next to be saying that the productive imagination is what reproduces the moments: “That is, in order to relate different moments together, I must be able to compare moments that have passed with my present experience. If I draw a line in thought, it must be the case that I can reproduce the previous moments as being contiguous with the present one in order for the thought to be complete” (SH 60) . It is unclear now who is doing what. Who (or what) is doing the reproducing, and who (or what) is doing the producing. Furthermore, what is the “production” since it is also described as “reproduction”? Is there a difference, and if so, what is it? I quote the paragraph for your interpretation.]

The synthesis of apprehension allows us to recognise different moments as belonging to the same temporal sequence. Kant notes that we often make use of these kinds of relations in our imagination’s use of associative principles, particularly in the contraction of habits. So, if we see a pattern, or hear a melody often enough, we come to expect the next sign, or musical note. Now, this is an empirical synthesis on the part of our imagination, to the extent that our particular habits themselves are not conditions for the possibility of experience. The possibility of contracting a habit in general does imply a second transcendental synthesis on the part of the subject, however [the following up to citation is Kant]:

If cinnabar were sometimes red, sometimes black, sometimes light, sometimes heavy, if a man changed sometimes into this, sometimes into that animal form, if the country on the longest day were sometimes covered with fruit, sometimes with ice and snow, my empirical imagination would never find opportunity when representing red colour to bring to mind heavy cinnabar. (Kant 1929: A100–1) |

In order to be able to reproduce empirically past moments that have an affinity with present moments, we need a transcendental synthesis of production in the imagination to generate those affinities that the empirical imagination discovers. If we turn to Kant’s example of drawing a line, we can see what this deeper synthesis is. In order for there to be the possibility of associating representations, they have to be in themselves associable. That is, in order to relate different moments together, I must be able to compare moments that have passed with my present experience. If I draw a line in thought, it must be the case that I can reproduce the previous moments as being contiguous with the present one in order for the thought to be complete.
(SH 59-60)

 
But in order for there to be any unity between moments and within moments, that which is doing the unifying needs to remain the same. So there is one “I think” that accompanies all the temporally diverse acts of consciousness. [So the unity of the subject is clear here. SH then moves to the concept of the object, but I am not following him entirely. He says “It is the concept of the object that gives all of these moments of appearance a unity, as it is by seeing all the moments of appearance as referring to the same underlying object that we are able to unify them. The concept of the object thus makes the unity of consciousness possible” (SH 60-61). He says that it is the concept of the object which gives the moments belonging to the same subject their unity. So it is not entirely clear to me whether it is the unity of the subject or the unity of the object that provides the unity of synthesis. There is probably not a contradiction here, but I am not sure how to put these ideas together exactly. One possibility is that he means that the unity of the subject presupposes the unity of the object, perhaps because the subject’s unity is like an object’s unity, or in other words, the subject is a thing, and so it must have the unity that things (objects) have.  Another possibility is that he means the unity of the subject is the basis for the unity of the object, which is the basis for the unity of all intuitive contents that are synthesized into coherent objects. Or perhaps he means that there are both subject and objective unities, and neither is more basic than the other. SH’s final point in this paragraph is that the concepts of (the unity of) subject and object comes prior to experience, so we cannot say anything about them. I am not sure why we can saying nothing about them. Can we not speak of its structure or other a priori features? Perhaps the idea here is that we are unable to cognize without both intuitions and concepts together, so without intuitions for these concepts, we cannot think about them. Maybe this is further discussed a later section.]

This synthesis in turn implies a third synthesis. In order to have experience, we don’t just need to have an affinity between different moments of experience, but these different moments of experience need to be related to one another as a unity for consciousness. ‘Without consciousness that that which we think is the very same as what we thought a moment before, all reproduction in the series of representations would be in vain’ (Kant 1929: A103). Kant puts this point as follows [the following up to citation is Kant]:

It must be possible for the ‘I think’ to accompany all our representations; for otherwise something would be represented in me that couldn’t be thought at all, and that is equivalent to saying that the representation would be impossible, or at least would be nothing to me. (Kant 1929: B131–2)

When we walk around a building, we are given a series of perspectives on it. Now, a condition of seeing these different perspectives as being perspectives on the same building is that I am able to relate them together as being my perceptions of the building. Otherwise, we would simply have a series of fragmentary appearances. We can go further than this, and say that without the unity of consciousness we would not just see appearances of different buildings. We would simply see a series of appearances without any kind of unity – they wouldn’t relate to anything. Now, this is a key point. Kant has claimed that in order for experience (that is, a relation to the world that gives us knowledge, rather than just sensation or appearances) to be possible, we need to be able to see appearances as belonging to the same subject. In order for this to be the case, they need to exhibit some kind of unity. It is the concept of the object that gives all of these moments of appearance a unity, as it is by seeing all the moments of appearance as referring to the same underlying object that we are able to unify them. The concept of the | object thus makes the unity of consciousness possible. We can note that, while for Kant we need the concepts of a subject and an object to make experience possible, precisely because they make experience possible, we don’t have direct experience of subjects and objects. Rather, they are necessarily prior to experience (and to synthesis). As such, while we need to presuppose them, we cannot say anything about them. This point will be important when we look at Kant’s criticisms of Descartes in relation to Deleuze’s third synthesis of time (2.6).
(SH 60-61)

To synthesize appearances into objective unities, subjects need to use categories, which “give us the essential characteristics of what it is for something to be an object (to be a substance, to have properties, etc.),” and which also give us the rules for how to synthesize appearances. (61)

We previously saw Deleuze being opposed to representation and the formation of concepts by means of the subject-predicate form of judgment. Kant shows that objecthood [which requires unity that will take the form of subject-predicate] is connected to judgment [which provides or uses that subject-predicate formulation/structure], and this connection is one of synthesis [of the parts of the object and of the object’s appearings with its concept]. Kant’s model has an active subjectivity/consciousness and a passive given [in intuition]. Deleuze will give a sub-representational model. We will learn later how, but somehow synthesis for Deleuze will be active and it will produce a new form of identity in the I, and somehow also the passivity will be “understood as simple receptivity without synthesis (DR 87/109)” (SH 62).

 

 

 

 

Citations from:

Somers-Hall, Henry. Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition. An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2013.

Or if otherwise noted:

DR:
Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994/London: Continuum, 2004.

 

Kant, Immanuel (1929), Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith, London: St. Martin’s Press.

KrV:
Kant, Immanuel. Kritik der reinen Vernun , Erster Teil, Werke Vol. 3. Edited by Wilhelm Weischedel. Darmstadt: Wissenscha liche Buchgesellscha , 1968. — Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1998.

I also discuss these syntheses in section 4 of:

Shores, Corry. “Self Shock: The Phenomenon of Personal Non-identity in Inorganic Subjectivity.” in The Yearbook on History and Interpretation of Phenomenology 2013. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2013. 157-183.

https://www.academia.edu/7434129/Self_Shock_The_Phenomenon_of_Personal_Non-identity_in_Inorganic_Subjectivity

As well, pages 61-67 of my thesis.

Shores, Corry. Difference and Phenomena: A Deleuzean Phenomenal Analysis of Body, Time, and Selfhood. University of Leuven, 2012. Dissertation.

https://www.academia.edu/2573653/Difference_and_Phenomena_A_Deleuzean_Phenomenal_Analysis_of_Body_Time_and_Selfhood

http://www.kuleuven.be/research/researchdatabase/project/3H09/3H090218.htm

 

 

Cinnabar image from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cinnabar_on_Dolomite.jpg