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I Think Therefore I Time: Summary of §18: What objective unity of self-consciousness is
Immanuel Kant
The Critique of Pure Reason
I. Transcendental Doctrine of Elements
Part 2: Transcendental Logic
Division 1: Transcendental Analytic
Book I: Analytic of Concepts
Chapter II: On the deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding
(Second) Section II: Transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding. (as in the second edition) (<§§15-27)
Important Points in this section:
- Our intuitions succeed one another. From the start, we receive our acts of consciousness as already temporal. Because we presuppose temporality even before having our temporally-conditioned intuitions, we must always already have a pure a priori representation of time, which we might think-of as the relational 'room' for separating and relating our mental graspings. But this successive relation means that what succeeds something else belongs-together with it and that all acts belong to a self-identical consciousness, the 'I think'. So the pure form of time relates to this I think only by means of the manifold successive intuitions that we have, and not by means of some more immediate relation.
Points Relative to Deleuze [to be revised as we learn more. These points are mere speculations.]:
- Deleuze will make the point that the I think grounds our pure form of time, as we described above. But he will also note that this I think finds itself being both the thinker and the thought, which need to be disjointed in order for there to be the self-awareness necessary for unified consciousness, (and this unified consciousness grounds the unity implied in temporal relations of succession). So time is grounded on internal disjunction; time is out of joint.
§18: What objective unity of self-consciousness is
[For objects we have concepts that bring together all their properties. To conceive the concept for an apple is to mentally grasp all its essential properties and qualities together. But if for each property there was a different consciousness, then they all would not unify into the one concept. So there must already be a unified consciousness which is responsible for each individual conceived property of the object, as well there must be a unified consciousness that is responsible for the unification of all the conceived properties of the object. Every mental grasping for each part of the concept must belong with the others and to a self-same consciousness that considers them all together as well as individually. But to be aware that each mental grasping belongs with the rest is to be conscious of the same consciousness that unites them all. Hence there is always a form of self-awareness, an 'apperception' in our acts of conception. The unity which provides the conditions of possibility for our conceiving objects is the 'transcendental unity of apperception'. It is an 'objective' unity, because it is responsible for the unity of concepts for objects.
There is yet another sort of unity, a subjective unity. We sense things through partial apprehensions. In this way, phenomena are empirically given to us as manifolds of intuitions (internal graspings). We might unify the partial apprehensions we have as they appear to us, simultaneously. Perhaps we might in one glance see two adjacent parts of something as belonging together in one object. Or we might notice the unity of successive intuitions. So perhaps for example we notice that the slight variations of tone of an object under continuously varying light intensity are still parts of the same thing. But whether we perceive them as simultaneous or successive depends on the needs of the situation. So the unity of our empirical subjective consciousness is contingent upon the immediate circumstances.
Now recall the pure form of the intuition of time. Our mental contents would all jumble together if they did not have some sort of relational-space in which to relate externally to one-another. Time is not spatial, but it is like space in that it allows our various mental graspings to be separated from one another so they may be related. So before we can have mental graspings, we need to receive them as temporally conditioned. This way one can succeed another. But this means that even before there are temporally conditioned mental graspings, we must already have a representation of time. It is not a representation of any specific temporal thing. Rather it is time in its pure form. But this pure form of time is what makes succession possible, and thus enables a manifold of intuitions. And as we noted, the I think is only possible if there is more than one act of consciousness which can find itself to belong with the others and to the unity of all acts of consciousness together. So the unity of the I think only finds expression through the manifold. Likewise, the pure form of time can only find expression by means of a successive manifold of intuitions. But this relationship of succession is one of belonging-together of the succeeding parts. So time in its pure form relates to the original unity of consciousness only by means of the manifold intuitions' relation to the I think, whose continuous self-consciousness allows for the belonging-relation of succession.]
The transcendental unity of apperception is that unity through which all of the manifold given in an intuition is united in a concept of the object. It is called objective on that account, and must be distinguished from the subjective unity of consciousness, which is a determination of inner sense, through which that manifold of intuition is empirically given for such a combination. Whether I can become empirically conscious of the manifold as simultaneous or successive depends on the circumstances, or empirical conditions. Hence the empirical unity of consciousness, through association of the representations, itself concerns an appearance, and is entirely contingent. The pure form of intuition in time, on the contrary, merely as intuition in general, which contains a given manifold, stands under the original unity of consciousness, solely by means of the necessary relation of the manifold of intuition to the one I think, thus through the pure synthesis of the understanding, which grounds a priori the empirical synthesis. That unity alone is objectively valid; the empirical unity of apperception, which we are not assessing here, and which is also derived only from the former, under given conditions in concreto, has merely subjective validity. One person combines the representation of a certain word with one thing, another with something else; and the unity of consciousness in that which is empirical is not, with regard to that which is given, necessarily and universally valid. [B139-140; p.250c-251]
Summary based on:
Kant. Critique of Pure Reason. Eds. & Transls. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
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