We are Time's Thrust toward an Other, §j of Merleau-Ponty, Prt.3, Ch.2, Phenomenology of Perception

by Corry Shores

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We are Time's Thrust toward an Other

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Phénoménologie de la perception
Phenomenology of Perception

Troisième Partie : L'être-pour-soi et l'être-au-monde
Part III. Being-for-Itself and Being-in-the-World

Ch. 2. La temporalité
Ch. 2. Temporality

What does your temporal self-escape got to do with you?

There is time throughout our lives, filled with distinct moments that stand-out from one another. Are we the same person we were at a younger age? We no longer conduct some of those behaviors. The time of our life passes. And who we are passes. They are the same thing; we are our own continuous passing-away (from ourselves).

Brief Summary

The dynamics and the contents of the temporal flow of conscious acts are jointly one thing: our subjectivity. The thrust of the flow is continuous, but it produces internal self-differentiations. It is responsible both for the continuous alteration of our awareness, but also of the dynamic continuity that links them together and to our current consciousness. Consciousness in the flow and consciousness of the flow are not distinct. This is because the transition from one present consciousness to the succeeding one is a matter of something implicit in the prior becoming explicit in the successor. So in other words, this temporal flow is a matter of our consciousness always being in the act of becoming aware of something already inherent to it, although implicitly so. Temporal thrust = subjective continuity = self-consciousness. The motion of the thrust, although being self-awareness, is still motion to an other act of awareness, so it is the self's openness and motion toward an other to it. But because it involves itself changing one part of its awareness from explicit to implicit, and another part from implicit to explicit, it is a self-modifying self-affection.

Points relative to Deleuze

Although consciousness involves a flux-synthesis, we ask, is there something more phenomenologically primordial? Rather than thinking that the present is a blur blending into the past and present, in our Deleuzean phenomenology, we will regard the present in its absolute immediacy, as an instant of phenomenal experience. Consider when we strike a match. There is a moment right before the flame bursts, that we can already feel the flame being there, even before it becomes something we explicitly see. But at that instant right before it bursts, as a phenomenon, we fully anticipate it, we already see it in a way, but just not explicitly with our eyes. Phenomenologically speaking, the flame appears to us as completely real even before it is completely apparent. Let's stress something: our most phenomenal experiences are these moments of intense variation when a differential future or past appears immediately in the present. If we witness a horrific traffic accident, something appears to us presently that is completely incompatible with what we just saw, which is now in the past. And the differential shock between these moments is phenomenal. It stands out and appears outside the flow of time. There was barely a moment between the immediate past and immediate present. And yet it feels like so much has transpired. Here we feel time as a phenomenon. It gives us change in immediacy. When we abruptly notice signs of age when looking in the mirror or discovering our bodies cannot do what they used to do, we are given years within that realization. Here the phenomenon of the self is given to us with the phenomenon of time, all without time ever passing, without its motion yet being taken into account or synthesized. In a Deleuzean phenomenology, an act of phenomenal awareness is not opening up and thrusting toward an other. It is already an other. The motion of time is not what allows our acts of consciousness to go from one to the other, rather, it is only because our acts of consciousness are already both one and other that they have the expulsive force to move away from one another. But how did they both come to coincide? We need to change our foundational phenomenal temporal principle from succession to simultaneity. We think of time as a flow of change, and thus as a matter of pure succession. But we are analyzing phenomenality. When is an act of consciousness most phenomenal? In an instant of incompatible simultaneities. When do we ourselves stand out most pronounced and undeniably to ourselves? When the self we sense is different then the self we assumed we were; when our variations are simultaneous. When does a passage of time stand out most prominently to us? Is it when we are bored waiting for the bus? Perhaps. Or is it when we are the opposite of bored, and we were so engrossed in our work that we look at the clock and notice hours have passed that seemed like minutes. The formula for time, self, and phenomena in Deleuze is "I am also another".

Review §i

The intertwinement and continuous thrust of time might lead us to characterize phenomenal time as standing somehow outside the flow of consciousness and being eternal in that way. But this cannot be so, because the thrust is in an actual changing present and the parts of time integrate only by means of the relations created by the real current durational present. Our being is our phenomenal immersion in the world right now in the present. And our conscious awareness is this phenomenal relation as well. Thus in the present, being and consciousness coincide.

Summary §j

Previously Merleau-Ponty noted a few related concepts. We find ourselves being in a situation. We are actively interrelating with the world around us. This interaction is what gives shape to the way the world is given to us, and is thus phenomenal. It is also actively occurring in the dynamic present. And from this temporal perspective, we can have the past and future in mind not as actively happening but as having happened and will be happening. If we were aware of moments of our experience in the past and future as them being actively happening now, then we would not be aware of them as past or future but rather as present. This is not so; we in fact are aware of them in their temporal absence, despite being given now in the form of retentions and protensions. So thus “consciousness takes root in being and time by taking up a situation.” (1945: 487bc / 1958: 493bc) Merleau-Ponty now asks, having taken all this into account, how do we describe consciousness?

We first take into consideration three features of consciousness that will enter into our description. One is that it is a ‘comprehensive project’; our awareness over time is something whose parts are thoroughly interrelated and integrated with one another. Another consideration is that consciousness is something that appears to itself (‘be apparent to itself / s’apparaître’). We are not merely aware of things. We are aware that we are aware of things. Previously Merleau-Ponty described an incorrect way to conceive this. It cannot be that we have a series of successive moments of consciousness, with us now at the present one, and then an additional act of consciousness synthesizing them altogether into one continuous stream of one subject. This is a problem, because that additional act of conscious now itself stands beyond the other synthesized moments, and it requires yet an additional act of consciousness for the present conscious act to be included synthetically with the rest. Thus from this view, it would be impossible for an act of present consciousness to be aware of itself as being continuous with the stream. Simultaneous with acts of consciousness would need also be acts of self consciousness. The final thing we note is that right now we are explicitly aware of certain things, but we are implicitly aware of others. [Consider for example if when driving a car or riding a bus, and we hear a loud screeching of tires that rapidly gets louder. Our bodies might brace for a collision. We do not know what will happen, but the way we interact with and are conscious of the world right now involves implicit awareness of what we think might later enter our explicit awareness. Thus,] consciousness is also a process of continual modifications from implicit to explicit, and also from explicit to implicit (as when present phenomena become implicitly retended after they pass). Consciousness thus involves an internal multiplicity of states and contents. If consciousness did not have this internal variation, it would be aware of everything explicitly all at once, and of course it is not.

Consciousness on the one hand is unified. The present moment of awareness is continuous with all the other moments; they make up the stream of one person’s awareness. But on the other hand, consciousness is multiple. Each moment is phenomenally unique, in that when it happened, it had explicit contents that the others did not have when they were in action. Consciousness is both a) the indivisible power that synthesizes the moments, and b) inherent within each moment as well. These two things are not distinct entities. Our consciousness itself both flows from itself while never leaving itself, and this is temporalization. It is a self-anticipatory movement [because it knows in advance that it will encounter itself still again as something both continuous with itself yet temporally differential to itself. We are always awaiting ourselves. Who are we becoming? How will we be feeling next? What will enter our mind? We know that we will be slightly different. Our consciousness both has itself under its awareness, but also its transitional transformations as well, which are given in the present not as explicit phenomena but rather as implicit anticipations.]

We must avoid conceiving as real and distinct entities either the indivisible power, or its distinct manifestations; consciousness is neither, it is both; it is the very action of temporalization—of ‘flux’, as Husserl has it—a self-anticipatory movement, a flow which never leaves itself. (487c / 493c)

To more fully illustrate, Merleau-Ponty will examine a literary example. Let’s first consider the consciousness of any character in a novel. More complex characters might have phases in their development. Merleau-Ponty has us consider in Proust's Swann's Way the character, Swann, who falls in love with Odette. He experiences both love for her and also jealousy as well. At first perhaps Odette has love for Swann too. But she takes other lovers and eventually turns away from Swann, whose unrelenting love causes him to remain attached to her long after her passion for him dies away. Thus his love becomes jealousy.

Proust shows how Swann’s love for Odette causes the jealousy which, in turn, modifies his love, since Swann, always anxious to win her from any possible rival, has no time | really to look at Odette. (487d / 493-494)

We said there were two unified dimensions of consciousness’ temporalization: its unified continuous motion and the continuously conjoined variety of different contents under perpetual passage and alteration. This view that sees the love as causing the jealousy only takes into account temporal consciousness as a multiplicity of causally related moments. It does not however give us the synthesizing dynamic which is responsible for all moments to be interrelated so thoroughly that each moment indirectly implies the others. It is not so simple that we may say Swann is first in love and secondly jealous. His initial love was already a jealous love. That coming jealousy tinged his original love, it was on the horizon, implied from the beginning.

Proust tells us when speaking of another love: it is the feeling of being shut out of the life of the beloved, and of wanting to force one’s way in and take complete possession of it. Swann’s love does not cause him to feel jealousy. It is jealousy already, and has been from the start. Jealousy does not produce a change in the quality of love: Swann’s feeling of pleasure in looking at Odette bore its degeneration within itself, since it was the pleasure of being the only one to do so. (488a / 494b)

Swann’s jealous love is also a part of his behavior in general; in other words, even before he fell in love with Odette, his behavior, his manner of integrating with the world, already implied his tendency for this kind of love. It was always on the horizon. Thus any one part or moment of our consciousness gives us to ourselves as a ‘comprehensive project’. [Hence our consciousness is aware of itself always from a perspective within itself.] We cannot think that the self is somehow outside the flow of time while also being aware of itself as being in the flow of time. So we cannot regard the self like Kant’s transcendental ego. This is for two reasons. Doing so would mean there is a self-same self who is juxtaposed to a stream of self-varying selves given empirically to our senses. By making this division, we cannot say that the transcendental ego is both the unity of the self lying outside the stream while also always being immanently inside. As well, we cannot say that each empirical appearance of ourselves belongs to the others and that the self is immanently between each to glue them together. Thus the subject must be in the flow of time. So consider instead if we regard the self as the thrusting of time which makes one act of consciousness pass to another. Such a self would explain both the unity of the different acts, as being their glue, and also explain their continuous variation, as being the thrust away from itself.

Before we go on, let’s recall some essential concepts in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology. To be consciously aware means to be integrated in a partialized way with the phenomenal world. By this we mean that not everything is phenomenally given explicitly all at once. To see the lamp’s front side is also to implicitly be aware of how its backside must look from the perspective of the hearth behind it. Some implicit aspects for one reason or another will call upon us to investigate them, perhaps because something does not add up with what we see. For example, when happening upon the beached boat and mistaking its masts for trees at first, we might have 'subconsciously' noticed that the masts were not swaying in the wind like the trees were. So we were implicitly aware of the wood-objects being parts of the ship, but not explicitly aware. That ambiguity in our awareness motivated us to turn our awareness more closely to parts of the forest that before were in the margins of our consciousness. Because there is always something implicit within our explicit awareness, we are continually driven to alter our acts of consciousness. There is always a thrust away from our current act of awareness. The newer acts that we thrust-toward were previously anticipated acts that we were just protentionally aware of. Our act of awareness of seeing the masts as trees already had a pull toward the act seeing them as masts. The thrust of time is inherent to every act of consciousness, because all phenomenal awareness involves the integrations that fill our awareness with protendable implications. Consider when we try to hold only one thing in our awareness indefinitely. We eventually feel a tension, a pull away from the focalized act of consciousness toward an act awaiting us in the margins of our awareness.

This continuous thrusting is responsible both for the subjective unity of the stream of conscious acts but also for their self-differential variety. Each act already from its inception is striving away from itself. It is distancing itself, extending away from itself. These self-distantiations are responsible for the extending stream of successive various contents, each having a unique set of temporal relations to the rest, because none occurred simultaneously. So the thrust is responsible for the variation of time. Yet, because the thrust is continuous, being always there from the beginning of each conscious act, it is what is common to all and is immediate to their transitioning. If our past conscious acts were not transitionally continuous with our present one, we would not be able to identify them as belonging altogether and to our current self. The transitional thrust of time then is the unifying factor that makes all our conscious acts ours. It is our subjectivity in its active immediacy, because it is the glue of all our temporally distinguishable parts. This thrust, we noted, is a self-modification of acts of consciousness, and thus temporal subjectivity is a matter of self-affection.

We shall never manage to understand how a thinking or constituting subject is able to posit or become aware of itself in time. If the I is indeed the transcendental Ego of Kant, we shall never understand how it can in any instance merge with its wake in the inner sense, or how the empirical self still remains a self. If, however, the subject is identified with temporality, then self-positing ceases to be a contradiction, because it exactly expresses the essence of living time. Time is ‘the affecting of self by self ’; what exerts the effect is time as a thrust and a passing towards a future: what is affected is time as an unfolded series of presents: the affecting agent and affected recipient are one, because | the thrust of time is nothing but the transition from one present to another. This ek-stase, this projection of an indivisible power into an outcome which is already present to it, is subjectivity. (488c.d / 494-495)

How is it that the temporal subjective flow is self aware? In immediate presence, our act of consciousness has part in its explicit focus, and part in its implicit focus. When our consciousness moves away from one explicit phenomenon to explicate another that is implicit, it is becoming aware of something that was inherently a part of itself, although implicitly, in the prior act. So this transition is an act of self awareness. And it is the motion of time.

This thrust is our personal subjectivity , because it is what makes all our other acts belong together and belong to our current act of immediate awareness.

The thrust is temporal , because its movement displaces acts of awareness out of present consciousness into implicitly retended awareness, and it brings out from marginal awareness implicit acts that were protentionally anticipated.

The thrust is self-aware , because it is the ongoing motion of one part of consciousness, the explicit part, bringing into its awareness another part of consciousness, the implicit part.

The thrust is immediately experiential , because the implicit and explicit phenomena result from our given interrelation with the world at whatever given moment.

The primary flow, says Husserl, does not confine itself to being; it must necessarily provide itself with a ‘manifestation of itself’ (Selbsterscheinung), without our needing to place behind it a second flow which is conscious of it. It ‘constitutes itself as a phenomenon within itself ’. It is of the essence of time to be not only actual time, or time which flows, but also time which is aware of itself, for the explosion or dehiscence of the present towards a future is the archetype of the relationship of self to self, and it traces out an inferiority or ipseity. Here a light bursts forth, for here we are no longer concerned with a being which reposes within itself, but with a being the whole essence of which, like that of light, is to make visible. It is through temporality that there can be, without contradiction, ipseity, significance and reason. That is seen even in the commonly held notion of time. We mark out the phases or stages of our life: for example, we consider everything that bears a significant relationship to our concerns at the moment as part of our present, thus recognizing implicitly that time and significance are but one thing. (488-489 / 495a.b)

We might think of our subjectivity as being a matter of self-constant self-identity. But as a transitional-synthetic thrust, it is neither self-constant nor self-identical. It is a continuous opening up toward an otherness to its present self.

Merleau-Ponty notes one of Husserl's observations. When we reflect on something in our current awareness, it seems already to be something in the past. And yet, this reflection on the immediate passing of conscious acts is itself a passing conscious act. This means that our acts of consciousness are immediately given to themselves, and because they are responsible for the thrust away from themselves, they also self-affectively modify themselves.

The fact that even our purest reflection appears to us as retrospective in time, and that our reflection on the flux is actually inserted into the flux, shows that the most precise consciousness of which we are capable is always, as it were, affected by itself or | given to itself, and that the word consciousness has no meaning independently of this duality. (489d / 495-496)

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phénoménologie de la perception. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1945.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Transl. Colin Smith. London/New York: Routledge, 1958.

Deranging Ourselves. Arthur Rimbaud. Letter To Georges Izambard. 13 May 1871. And Letter to Paul Demeny. 15 May 1871

by Corry Shores
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[The following is summarizes selected parts of the letter. I give my deepest thanks to the source of the image:
H. Lewandowski / www.histoire-image.org
Image credits given below.]

Deranging Ourselves

(Thanks H. Lewandowski / www.histoire-image.org)

Arthur Rimbaud
Letter To Georges Izambard
13 May 1871

&

Letter to Paul Demeny
15 May 1871


What’s this Letter Got to do with You?

We often think that we will fashion ourselves into the person we want to be. We see ourselves as having potential, or perhaps as being flabby, physically or mentally, and needing to be put in shape. So our ego or our I has a concept of who we want to be, and we then act upon ourselves to make ourselves according to our self-conceptions. Rimbaud wants to be a poet. But he does not associate with the ego that conceives himself as a poet. Rather, he relates himself to the unformed matter of his selfhood. For this reason, he more strongly feels himself to be other. So we too, when thinking we will undergo a pre-conceived change– we too can see ourselves as being other to ourselves in this form/matter way.

Brief Summary

In the first letter, Rimbaud tells an old acquaintance that he is trying to become a poet. He feels himself to be like the matter which will receive the form of poet. The formal side is like the concept of who he will become, and his material side is like the disordered state he is in now (a state of derangement of all his senses). Hence he claims “I is an other” / “Je est un autre”.

In the second letter, he reiterates this point.

Points Relative to Deleuze
[Under Ongoing Revision]

Deleuze will locate the empty form of time at the basis of our selfhood, which is self-difference. It is not merely us changing through time. Rather, it is us being different from ourselves (our unity of self-consciousness being different from our self-appearings)– this self-difference goes hand-in-hand with the empty form of time, through which changes appear, including our own changes. So as a condition for us to change through time and to appear to ourselves, we need already to be internally distinguished as being both a) the pre-established unity of all our acts of consciousness to which we b) as appearances will appear. Our two main different self-expressions are internal to us, so they are not spatial. So as different, they cannot be different on the grounds that they occupy two different spatial places within us. Rather, they must be separated by temporal succession. So the grounds for our internal self-difference is successivity itself, or the form of succession, the formal relation that different internal things will take so that they may stand apart from each other. This is the empty a priori form of time. Thus at the heart of our selves, we are both pure difference and pure time.

Arthur Rimbaud
Letter To George Izambard
13 May 1871

Izambard has taken a teaching position at a university. Rimbaud on the one hand seems to congratulate him, but on the other he seems to criticize Izambard as well. This ambivalence extends also to what seems to be both a critique of Izambard’s poetic tastes, but also a criticism of his own tastes as well. “One day, I hope – many others hope the same thing – I will see objective poetry according to your principle, I will see it more sincerely than you would!” (303d)

Rimbaud explains that he wants to become a poet. So there is this idea already that he is unformed, in a way. He has not yet fully taken-on the form of a poet.

I want to be a poet, and I am working to make myself a seer: you will not understand this, and I don’t know how to explain it to you. It is a question of reaching the unknown by a derangement of all the senses. (303d)
Je veux être poète, et je travaille à me rendre voyant : vous ne comprenez pas du tout, et je ne saurais presque vous expliquer. Il s’agit d’arriver à l’inconnu par le dérèglement de tous les sens. (302d)

He goes on than to evoke an Aristotelian distinction between form and matter in order to describe how he is other to himself.

I is someone else. It is too bad for the wood which finds itself a violin (305a)
Je est un autre. Tant pis pour le bois que se trouve violon (304a)

We might look at part of Aristotle’s Metaphysics for context:

Therefore, as we say, generation would be impossible if nothing were already existent. It is clear, then, that some part must necessarily pre-exist; because the matter is a part, since it is matter which pre-exists in the product and becomes something. (Book VII, 1032b, from www.perseus.tufts)

Deleuze will contrast Rimbaud's form of self-division from the Kantian kind. For Rimbaud, he is like formless human matter that will one day find himself formed as a poet. He takes the perspective of the matter, and considers his I to be what provides the thoughts that form the raw matter of his self. Deleuze explains:

Aristotle tells us that there is matter and then there is form which informs [informe] matter. Matter is the copper, the bugle is the copper which has been poured into this form. Nothing could be more classical, and Rimbaud assimilates himself to a matter and says: thought forms me. (Cours Vincennes - 21/03/1978)

Aristote nous dit qu'il y a la matière et puis qu'il y a la forme qui informe la matière. La matière c'est le cuivre, le clairon c'est le cuivre qui a été coulé dans cette forme. C'est on ne peut plus classique, et Rimbaud s'assimile à une matière et dit : la pensée me forme. (Cours Vincennes - 21/03/1978)

Kant’s form of I is other is even more profound than Rimbaud’s. We will find that for Kant, it is not an I who is forming a self from raw self-matter. Kant’s I is just the unity of consciousness; it is found along with every concept we conceive, but the I itself is not however a concept. So Kant’s I is not a formative principle. And the self is not an object that is being formed by something. The self appears to consciousness. We sense ourselves. These appearances are in continual variation. We are constantly a divergence between our unity and our self-appearings. That is to say, below the unity of our consciousness there is a deeper internal self-differentiation.

Letter To Paul Demeny
15 May 1871

Rimbaud discusses with Paul Demeny the history of poetry and the evaluation of Romanticism. He then repeats his point from the previous letter. He goes on to elaborate on this idea that our I is there for the creation of our self-hood, as if it were a preexisting principle or concept that helps form ourselves from our raw self-matter.

For I is someone else. If brass wakes up a trumpet, it is not its fault. This is obvious to me: I am present at this birth of my thought: I watch it and listen to it: I draw a stroke of the bow: the symphony makes its stir in the depths, or comes on to the stage in a leap. (305d)
Car Je est un autre. Si le cuivre s'éveille clairon, il n'y a rien de sa faute. Cela m'est évident: j'assiste à l'éclosion de ma pensée: je la regarde, je l'écoute: je lance un coup d'archet: la symphonie fait son remuement dans les profondeurs, ou vient d'un bond sur la scène. (304d)

But the soul must be made monstrous: in the fashion of the comprachicos, if you will! [Editor's footnote: Comprachicos: kidnappers of children who mutilate them in order to exhibit them as monsters]. Imagine a man implanting and cultivating warts on his face.
I say one must be a seer, make oneself a seer.
The Poet makes himself a seer by a long, gigantic and rational derangement of all the senses. All forms of love, suffering, and madness. He searches himself. He exhausts all poisons in himself and keeps only their quintessences. Unspeakable torture where he needs all his faith, all his superhuman strength, where he becomes among all men the great patient, the great criminal, the one accursed – and the supreme Scholar! – Because he reaches the unknown! Since he cultivated his soul, rich already, more than any man! He reaches the unknown, and when, bewildered, he ends by losing the intelligence of his visions, he has seen them. (307c.d)
Mais il s’agit de faire l’âme monstrueuse : à l’instar des comprachicos, quoi ! Imaginez un homme s’implantant et se cultivant des verrues sur le visage.
Je dis qu’il faut être voyant, se faire voyant.
Le Poète se fait voyant par un long, immense et raisonné dérèglement de tous les sens. Toutes les formes d’amour, de souffrance, de folie ; il cherche lui-même, il épuise en lui tous les poisons, pour n’en garder que les quintessences. Ineffable torture où il a besoin de toute la foi, de toute la force surhumaine, où il devient entre tous le grand malade, le grand criminel, le grand maudit, - et le suprême Savant ! Car il arrive à l’inconnu ! Puisqu’il a cultivé son âme, déjà riche, plus qu’aucun ! Il arrive à l’inconnu, et quand, affolé, il finirait par perdre l’intelligence de ses visions, il les a vues ! (306c.d)

Aristotle. Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vols.17, 18, translated by Hugh Tredennick. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1933, 1989.

Passage from: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0052%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D1032b

Rimbaud, Arthur. Rimbaud: Complete Works, Selected Letters. Transl. Wallace Fowlie. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966.

Deleuze, Gilles. Cours Vincennes - 21/03/1978.
French: http://www.webdeleuze.com/php/texte.php?cle=59&groupe=Kant&langue=1
English: http://www.webdeleuze.com/php/texte.php?cle=67&groupe=Kant&langue=2


Image obtained very gratefully from
http://www.histoire-image.org/site/zoom/zoom.php?i=411&oe_zoom=129
Thanks H. Lewandowski
© Photo RMN - H. Lewandowski

Deleuze: 'Time is Out of Joint' Series, Entry Directory

by Corry Shores
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[Deleuze Entry Directory]

Deleuze: 'Time is Out of Joint' Series

Texts Deleuze References:

Aeschylus: Agamemnon

Sophocles: Oedipus the King

Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus

Sophocles: Antigone

Kant: Critique of Pure Reason, "Analytic of Concepts", note to section 25

Kant: Critique of Pure Reason, "General Note on the Transition from Rational Psychology to Cosmology"


Hölderlin: Remarks on Oedipus and Antigone

[The Identity of Difference. Citations from Hölderlin, Essays and Letters on Theory, on the topic of split self-hood]

Heaven Vacated. Jean Beaufret. Summary of "Hölderlin et Sophocle", pp.16-26


Rimbaud: Letter To Georges Izambard (13 May 1871) & Letter to Paul Demeny (15 May 1871)

Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy §9

Kafka: The Problem of Our Laws

Alliez: Profit Off its Hinge: Aberrant Monied Time in Alliez' Capital Times

What Shadows We Are: Summary of §25 of the Transcendental Analytic in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

by Corry Shores
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[The following is summary. My own notes are in brackets. The full text for the summarized section is provided at the end.]

What Shadows We Are:

Summary of §25 of the Transcendental Analytic in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

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 pre-experiential self-consciousness is not aware of how we appear, or even how we are in ourselves. It is only aware that we are. So our pre-experiential self-consciousness is aware only that we exist, but not who or what this existence is.

- When we cognize something, we relate a concept (something in the understanding) with (sensible) intuition. This relating action of cognition is determining: we add determinate (sensible) content to our concept. So we cognize ourselves, and thereby determine ourselves, only when we also have sensible appearances of ourselves. But this means that we never cognize our existence itself. We only cognize the appearings of our existence. Hence our existence itself remains undetermined, all while the appearings of our existence are themselves determined (by this determining but undetermined self-conscious existence).

- Our inner intuitions always take-on the form of time, since we always welcome our intuitions as being temporal (this is the a priori representation of time). And because we can only cognize ourselves by means of our sensible self-intuitions (our self-appearings), this means that we can only cognize ourselves as being under the form of time.

Points Relative to Deleuze

[under ongoing revision]:

- The 'I think' itself is the transcendental apperception: it is our pure a priori self-consciousness. As the unity that possibilizes all syntheses, the 'I think' is essential for us to cognize anything, including ourselves. But cognition requires sensible intuition (appearances), so the cognition of ourselves requires sensible self-intuitions (self-appearances), which are temporal on account of their being inner intuitions. So when we think about (cognize) ourselves, we are cognizing not our existence, but the appearances of our existence. We in this way are determining our existence's appearance, but we are not determining our existence itself. So our existence is undetermined, all while our self-appearance is determined. Hence we can only determine ourselves by means of sensibility, time, and phenomena (appearances).

Hence in order for us to determine ourselves, we must already be split into two parts: 1) our undetermined existence (our a priori unity of self-consciousness), and 2) our determined appearings. Our self-appearings receive our determination, and so are passive, and because they take the form of inner intuitions, they also then take-on the form of time. But then we see that we can only determine our existence insofar as it appears by means of the empty form of a priori time. And in so doing, our existence shows itself to bear an internal difference: it is both undetermined existence and determined appearance. This fracture is possible by means of the time which makes existence appear to itself. So in the first place, Kant makes one further distinction. There is the undetermined of the 'I am,' and the determined of the self-thinking 'I think', but in order for the 'I am' to be determined by the 'I think', there needs first to be the grounds for this relation, that is to say, there needs to be the determinability that serves as the a priori grounds for the relation between the two. What makes our existence determinable is its appearance in time. So the a priori empty form of time is the determinability of our existence. But we only can appear in time when there is something else in addition to our existence. This other within us is the self-appearance of our existence. So the empty form of time then is based in our internal a priori self-difference, the other who makes-up part of the structure of our selfhood (and I note that this other is explicit and not like a concealed other within us; no, rather, this other is the full appearance of ourselves to ourselves). But this difference within us is not itself cognizable; only our self-appearances are. Hence our internal difference is also undetermined. It is a pure difference. Hence this is one way that time is obtained from pure difference itself.

Summary of the Prior Section:

Our understanding's concepts are unities grounded in the unity of our self-consciousness. This unity of self-consciousness also grounds the unifications of the sense-intuitions we have. Because both are grounded on the same thing, our understanding can already be aware that its concepts can apply to our intuitions. However, the synthetic unities of the understanding and the imagination are different sorts. Our imaginations unify by means of a figurative synthesis, but our understanding unifies by means of combination. [What we sensibly intuit, we figure together. However, we combine the predicates of our concepts; they form nothing with a shape or sensible appearance.] Our imagination can synthesize spontaneously, in which case it is productive. But when the forces of association cause our imagination to synthesize, then it is reproductive. All syntheses, as we noted, are grounded in an a priori synthesis of our self-consciousness. To recognize ourselves as ourselves requires that we also sense ourselves. So we are both sensed and self-recognizing. The part of us that is sensed is our appearance to ourselves. The part of us that recognizes ourselves is our a priori unity of consciousness. Our self-consciousness regards our self-appearings as being its own. Our self-appearings are like determinate content that corresponds to the indeterminate concept of ourselves.

§25

Our transcendental self-consciousness is not correlated with sense-content. It is merely the a priori unity grounding our synthetic acts of consciousness and imagination. So it is not yet involved in our self-appearances. But also, this synthetic a priori unity of consciousness is just the belonging-together relations that will come to be expressed through our particular conscious acts. It is not a consciousness then of anything about us, not even a consciousness of who we are in ourselves; for, that would require some sort of content. Rather, it is just the coherence itself of our self-consciousness. It cannot tell us what makes-us-up. It can only be an awareness that there is an internal force of coherence that constitutes some self-identical existence. Kant writes, "In the transcendental synthesis of the manifold of representations in general, [...] hence in the synthetic original unity of apperception, I am conscious of myself not as I appear to myself, nor as I am in myself, but only that I am." (B157; p.259d) Recall that cognitions require both concepts and intuitions (§22). This means that if we want to cognize ourselves, we need two things:

1) The mental action uniting our self-consciousness with our intuitions ("the action of thinking that brings the manifold of every possible intuition to the unity of apperception" p.259d; B157), and

2) Our self-appearings, that is, our inner intuitions of ourselves, the determinate content that we are cognizing ("a determinate sort of intuition, through which this manifold is given" p.259d; B157).

Now, our transcendental self-consciousness is not yet involved in cognitions of our self-appearings (because it does not yet correspond to any intuitions of ourselves). But, it is at least a consciousness that we are, in other words, it is a consciousness of our existence, even though it is not yet a consciousness of what we are like, what makes us who we are. That is to say, our transcendental self-consciousness is consciousness of our indeterminate existence.

And since our consciousness of our indeterminate existence is not yet involved in determinate intuitions (our self-appearings), our existence itself is not an appearance. We begin to determine our existence only when our self-consciousness of our self's existence comes to correspond with the way we appear to ourselves ("the determination of my existence can only occur in correspondence with the form of inner sense, according to the particular way in which the manifold that I combine is given in inner intuition" B157-158; p.260a). Since inner intuitions of ourselves (self-appearings) are required for cognition, we never have cognitions of ourselves as we are, but only as we appear to ourselves ("I therefore have no cognition of myself as I am, but only as I appear to myself" B158; p.260a). Hence our transcendental self-consciousness is not a cognition of ourselves.

Just as for the cognition of an object distinct from me I also need an intuition in addition to the thinking of an object in general (in the category), through which I determine that general concept, so for the cognition of myself I also need in addition to the consciousness, or in addition to that which I think myself, an intuition of the manifold in me, through which I determine this thought; and I exist as an intelligence that is merely consciousness of its faculty for combination but which, in regard to the manifold that it is to combine, is subject to a limiting condition that it calls inner sense, which can make that combination intuitable only in accordance with temporal relations that lie entirely outside of the concepts of the understanding proper, and that can therefore still cognize itself merely as it appears to itself with regard to an intuition (which is not intellectual and capable of being given through the understanding itself), not as it would cognize itself if its intuition were intellectual. (B158-159; p.260b.c)

So we see that in order for us to cognize ourselves, we need to also have inner intuitions which are temporalized, even though such temporal relations lie outside the nature of the concepts in our faculty of understanding.

Now let's return to the part of the text where Kant writes: "my own existence is not indeed appearance (let alone mere illusion), but the determination of my existence can only occur in correspondence with the form of inner sense, according to the particular way in which the manifold that I combine is given in inner intuition." (B157-158; p.259-260, boldface mine) Kant footnotes the term 'existence'. So, when we cognize ourselves, we are performing the action of the "I think", the cogito. By means of this cognition, we place the determinate content of our inner intuitions of ourselves (our self-appearings) into relation with our a priori self-consciousness, which is our awareness that we have being; it is our undetermined existence (undetermined because it is only secondarily placed in relation with the determinate self-appearances). Hence Kant writes: "The I think expresses the act of determining my existence." (B157; p.260cd) So first we have the a priori consciousness of our existence. Then secondarily we add to it determinate content, and in that way, we determine our existence: "The existence is thereby already given, but the way in which I am to determine it, i.e., the manifold that I am to posit in myself as belonging to it, is not yet thereby given" (B157; p.260cd). For us to have this determination, we need to have a self-intuition. As an inner intuition, it is conditioned by the a priori form of time: "For that self-intuition is required, which is grounded in an a priori given form, i.e., time, which is sensible and belongs to the receptivity of the determinable." (B157; p.260d, emphasis mine) So we have intuitions that give us our self-appearings. And our a priori self-consciousness (transcendental apperception) is part of the intellectual/cognitive side of us that relates our self-consciousness with our self-appearings. We said that to make such a relation is to determine our existence. So this side of us would be the determining part of us, while the appearing side of us is our determined part. Kant now writes that we do not have another intuition that gives us our transcendental a priori self-consciousness. That is to say, we do not intuit ourselves in our acts of self-determining ourselves. This determining is an act of our understanding, which operates spontaneously (see A68/B93). Now note again how a priori time gives us the inner intuitions that we come to determine by means of cognition. So time gives us intuitions in a pre-determined state. But we cannot, however, have intuitions of our transcendental self-consciousness also in a predetermined state. The determining part of us, the self-consciousness that cognizes itself, is our active side. [And the part of us that is given to our consciousness through intuitions is our passive side.] But if we wanted to determine our existence as being what is performing the act of self-determination, we would need to intuit our performance of determining (because in order to determine, we need to cognize, which requires that what is being determined be intuited before it is then related to its concept). So because our determining side is not self-given, we cannot determine our existence as being this active self-determining self. (We can only determine our existence as being our passive determined appearing self). [Now, we are self-conscious of our self-determining action, even though we do not cognize it. But to be self-conscious in this way merely means that we are aware that we are cognizing, even though we cannot determine who or what is doing that cognizing. To be aware that we are cognizing is to be aware of the spontaneity of our conscious actions. However,] our existence itself can only be determined by means of intuitions and hence our senses. Our existence then can only be determined as an appearing existence, and not as that existence itself. But we do also have our representation of ourselves as the spontaneity of our determining. Because we know ourselves in this way, we can consider ourselves in terms of our being an intelligence.

Now I do not have yet another self-intuition, which would give the determining in me, of the spontaneity of which alone I am conscious, even before the act of determination, in the same way as time gives that which is to be determined, thus I cannot determine my existence as that of a self-active being, rather I merely represent the spontaneity of my thought, i.e., of the determining, and my existence always remains only sensibly determinable, i.e., determinable as the existence of an appearance. Yet this spontaneity is the reason I call myself an intelligence. (B158; p.260d)

From the text of the Meiklejohn translation:

SS 21.

On the other hand, in the transcendental synthesis of the manifold content of representations, consequently in the synthetical unity of apperception, I am conscious of myself, not as I appear to myself, nor as I am in myself, but only that I am. This representation is a Thought, not an Intuition. Now, as in order to cognize ourselves, in addition to the act of thinking, which subjects the manifold of every possible intuition to the unity of apperception, there is necessary a determinate mode of intuition, whereby this manifold is given; although my own existence is certainly not mere phenomenon (much less mere illusion), the determination of my existence*

-97-

can only take place conformably to the form of the internal sense, according to the particular mode in which the manifold which I conjoin is given in internal intuition, and I have therefore no knowledge of myself as I am, but merely as I appear to myself. The consciousness of self is thus very far from a knowledge of self, in which I do not use the categories, whereby I cogitate an object, by means of the conjunction of the manifold in one apperception. In the same way as I require, for the sake of the cognition of an object distinct from myself, not only the thought of an object in general (in the category), but also an intuition by which to determine that general conception, in the same way do I require, in order to the cognition of myself, not only the consciousness of myself or the thought that I think myself, but in addition an intuition of the manifold in myself, by which to determine this thought. It is true that I exist as an intelligence which is conscious only of its faculty of conjunction or synthesis, but subjected in relation to the manifold which this intelligence has to conjoin to a limitative conjunction called the internal sense. My intelligence (that is, I) can render that conjunction or synthesis perceptible only according to the relations of time, which are quite beyond the proper sphere of the conceptions of the understanding and consequently cognize itself in respect to an intuition (which cannot possibly be intellectual, nor given by the understanding), only as it appears to itself, and not as it would cognize itself, if its intuition were intellectual.

* The I think expresses the act of determining my own existence. My existence is thus already given by the act of consciousness; but the mode in which I must determine my existence, that is, the mode in which I must place the manifold belonging to my existence, is not thereby given. For this purpose intuition of self is required, and this intuition possesses a form given a priori, namely, time, which is sensuous, and belongs to our receptivity of the determinable. Now, as I do not possess another intuition of self which gives the determining in me (of the spontaneity of which I am conscious), prior to the act of determination, in the same manner as time gives the determinable, it is clear that I am unable to determine my own existence as that of a spontaneous being, but I am only able to represent to myself the spontaneity of my thought, that is, of my determination, and my existence remains ever determinable in a purely sensuous manner, that is to say, like the existence of a phenomenon. But it is because of this spontaneity that I call myself an intelligence.

Summary based on:

Kant. Critique of Pure Reason. Eds. & Transls. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Full text taken from:

Kant. Critique of Pure Reason. Transl. J.M.D Meiklejohn.

Available at:

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KanPure.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public∂=all

When You Think About You, You Affect Your Self: Summary of §24 'On the Application of the categories to objects of the senses in general' in Kant CPuR

by Corry Shores
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When You Think About You, You Affect Your Self: Summary of §24: On the Application of the categories to objects of the senses in general.

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:

- [Even before we sense things in space and time, we receive them as spatial and temporal, which means we have a pure a priori representation of space and time. In our experiences, we will become aware of manifolds, spanning time and space. But each temporal part of the manifold is related to the rest through their relations of succession. Each moment already belongs with its neighbors in the succession. But the reason they belong together is because during each one, there was the same consciousness performing that specific action corresponding to that part of the manifold. So we must be continually self-aware of the one self-same unified consciousness performing the different acts of consciousness. So there is an a priori unity in our sense intuitions based on our unified self-consciousness. Likewise, in our understanding, what grounds the unity of our concepts is again the unity of our self-consciousness. This unity must already be there before we conceive or perceive something. But] because both our conceptions and our perceptions are made possible by an a priori unity of consciousness, our understanding can know already that its unity may apply to the unity of sense intuitions.

- The parts of a sense-manifold are unified by a figurative synthesis, and those parts of a manifold of an intuition in general are unified by a combination of the understanding.

- Our imagination is productive when it synthesizes spontaneously, but it is reproductive when it synthesizes according to the empirical law of association.

- The unity of our consciousness provides the grounds for all syntheses that we perform. What unifies our consciousness is our continual self-consciousness. But to be conscious of ourselves implies certain things. 1) Our inner sense produces inner-sense intuitions of ourselves. In a way, we ourselves are being sensed in a passive way. 2) Our a priori unity of consciousness regards all our inner intuitions as all belonging together and all belonging to it. So there is a part of us that makes-up the intuitions of ourselves that we then synthesize and determine as our own. This is the determined part of us; it is the passive subject. But our unity of apperception in our understanding is what guides the synthesis of our inner sensings of ourselves. So this part of us is the determining part of us, [perhaps we might say our active subjectivity].

Points Relative to Deleuze

[under ongoing revision]:

- There is a part of us that is being sensed when we are self-conscious. This is the determined part of us, our passive subjectivity. But this means then that there is another part of us that is doing the determining. Because it is not determined but rather determining, Deleuze will note that it is an undetermined part of us. Deleuze will then also relate the "I think" to the determinate part, and the "I am" to the indeterminate. [This might be because the being who is doing the thinking, the I- it is not the determined part of us but the determining and hence the undetermined part of us. When we notice ourselves thinking in the "I think", this would then be the determined part of us, the part that we are determining as being an action belonging to the determining (undetermined) part of us. But note how it is only by means of these determinations that our self-consciousness expresses itself and can become aware of itself. So in a way, it is also on the basis of the determined part of us that we determine the undetermined part as being our own self-consciousness. We might say then that the determined part of us is a determination that determines our undetermined selves as being us. So there is a third determination, which we might call determinability itself, or as Deleuze calls it, the determinable. This relation of difference between the undetermined and the determined, which determines the undetermined, is also what determines that both share the same determination, the same self-consciousness. Because both sides of the determination are not inherently separate (they are the same self-consciousness), this is an internal difference and not an external one. Now, all this again is based on how the determined sensed part of us (the I think) determines the sensing/synthesizing part of us as being the same self-consciousness. Our sensings of ourselves are always inner sensing, and hence are always temporal. For this determining to happen, there must be a manifold intuition of our inner-sensing of ourselves. That means we need succession, time, in order for us to appear to ourselves in the first-place, and thereby be determined in such a way that we also determine the determining part of ourselves as being ourselves. Hence time as inner disjunction is the form under which our undetermined existence is determined. But also, what enables the successivity of time is the belonging-together of the successive parts, which belong-together because they all belong to one self-same self-consciousness. Hence pure time itself and our inner disjunction co-found each other. We have time because our unified self-hoods are really made-up of an internal disjunction, and as well we have our self-hoods, which are internally disjoined, on account of the pure form of time.]

§24: On the Application of the categories to objects of the senses in general.

In our understanding, we have concepts. They are pure when we have not yet applied them to sense-intuitions. [They are like empty containers that can be filled by whatever sense-intuitions are appropriate for them. Because they are empty and can be filled by a variety of different possible intuitions, Kant says that] they are "mere forms of thought". [I miss some of his reasoning here: "The pure concepts of the understanding are related through the mere understanding to objects of intuition in general, without it being determined whether this intuition is our own or some other but still sensible one, but they are on this account mere forms of thought, through which no determinate object is yet cognized." (B150; p.256b)] [While the imagination will synthesize the parts together of our empirical intuition, so that they may fit with a concept,] the unity of the concept's manifold is grounded in the unity of our self-consciousness, that is, "the unity of apperception." [Because all cognition will depend on this unification, which is based on the unity of our self-consciousness], the unity of apperception is thus "the ground of the possibility of cognition a priori insofar as it rests on the understanding" (B150; p.256b). It is transcendental in Kant's sense of the term, because it is a condition for the possibility of cognition. And because it does not yet accompany sense-intuitions, it is purely intellectual. [Now recall also how we have pure a priori representations of space and time. Because of our manner of receiving impressions of external objects, we already from the beginning welcome them as spatial objects. In a similar way, we always already welcome our inner impressions as occurring in time. This means that even before our experiences of spatial and temporal things, we already have a representation of space and time. But since we do not yet sense some object with qualities, our a priori representation is 'pure'. It is pure space itself and pure time itself. Yet despite being pure, they still involve a synthesis. Time in its pure representation would still somehow express the trait of successivity. In succession, one thing already belongs with what precedes and follows it. So even in the pure intuition of succession, there is already an a priori synthesis which expresses the togetherness of temporal parts. We might think of space in similar terms. Things are spatial only if they exist in a spatial medium whose spatial parts are continuously meshed together. So again, already in the concept of space there is an a priori synthesis. So at the basis of our sense-representations is that the parts in their manifold are already together. Now, in order for them all to belong together, they all must belong to one consciousness. This means for each of the parts of the sense-manifolds, there must be an awareness that they belong to one self-same consciousness. This awareness then is our continual self-consciousness, and it again is the unity of apperception. Thus even though the pure concepts of our understanding do not yet apply to specific sense-impressions, the unity of our consciousness as it finds itself in our understanding already can think the unity of our sensible intuitions; for they share the same common ground: the continual and pervasive belonging-together and belonging-to one self-same unified self-consciousness. Kant writes:]

But since in us a certain form of sensible intuition a priori is fundamental, which rests on the receptivity of the capacity for representation (sensibility), the understanding, as spontaneity, can determine the manifold of given representations in accord with the synthetic unity of apperception, and thus think a priori synthetic unity of the apperception of the manifold of sensible intuition, as the condition under which all objects of our (human) intuition must necessarily stand, through which then the categories, as mere forms of thought, acquire objective reality, i.e., application to objects that can be given to us in intuition, but only as appearances; for of these alone are we capable of intuition a priori. (B150-151; p256b.c)

So we know that we have a priori grounds for synthesizing the manifold of our sensible intuitions, just as we know that we have a priori grounds for the synthetic unity of our concepts. But their synthetic unities are different sorts. [Consider that we receive a manifold of sense-impressions. We then give form, shape, or 'figure' to what we perceive]. Kant calls the synthesis of the sensible manifold "figurative" (synthesis speciosa). [Our concepts for things often are a cluster of traits. For example, a triangle has three points connected by three lines to make a plane shape. These traits in a way are combined with one another in our concept.] And Kant calls the synthesis of the manifold of intuitions in general the "combination of the understanding" (synthesis intellectualis). "both are transcendental, not merely because they themselves proceed a priori but also because they ground the possibility of other cognition a priori." (B151; p.256d).

[Consider how we can imagine things not there available to our senses.] For Kant, the imagination is "the faculty for representing an object even without its presence in intuition" (B151; p.256d). Figurative synthesis unifies a manifold of sense-intuition. This unity is grounded on the unity of our self-consciousness (transcendental apperception). Hence the transcendental unity involved in figurative synthesis is based on the transcendental synthesis of the imagination. Now, one side of our imagination deals with intuitions, which are sensible, and for this reason this aspect of the imagination belongs to the sensible [and thus the empirical a posteriori, and not the a priori.] However, the imagination organizes and synthesizes the sense intuitions in accordance with the concepts that these synthesized objects will then correspond to. So the intuitive material that it synthesizes can be determined to belong to a certain object whose concept we have in our understanding. So the intuitions are determinable. But because the imagination takes part in the spontaneous activity which determines the intuitions, it is a part of the determining and not just the determined. The unity of apperception allows the imagination to take intuitions and fuse them together, on account of their already belonging together, by belonging to one self-same self-consciousness. This means that the imagination can determine the form of what we sense even before we sense something, and so this a priori determination of our sense-intuitions would then be the transcendental synthesis of the imagination.

We may regard the imagination as productive when it synthesizes spontaneously. The synthesis of reproductive imagination, however, is subject to the empirical laws. Foremost among them is the law of association. As empirical, it cannot tell us anything about a priori cognition, and hence reproductive imagination is more of a matter for psychology to study.

***

[Section break]

Kant has us recall §6 [where he discusses the implications of the a priori representation of pure time]. Here he explains how we always already receive our internal intuitions as happening in time. Yet also, we have been discussing the self-consciousness which is a self-unity that enables all the synthetic unifications that we are able to perform. But, to be self-conscious implies that we have an inner intuition of ourselves. When we have any intuition whatsoever, we are internally affected by what we intuit. So when we intuit ourselves, that means we are internally affected by our awareness of ourselves. But then there seems to be a contradiction. For on the one hand, we are actively the ones performing the act of consciousness. Yet on the other hand, we are also that object that we are being conscious-of, so in that sense we are also passive in that interaction.

Here is now the place to make intelligible the paradox that must have struck everyone in the exposition of the form of inner sense (§6 ): namely, how this presents even ourselves to consciousness only as we appear to ourselves, not as we are in ourselves, since we intuit ourselves only as we are internally affected, which seems to be contradictory, since we would have to relate to ourselves passively; for this reason it is customary in the systems of psychology to treat inner sense as the same as the faculty of apperception (which we carefully distinguish). (B152-153; p.257c).

[We synthesize our intuitions in accordance with the concepts of our understanding. So its a priori unity is responsible for the a priori unity of our inner intuitions. Kant writes:] "That which determines the inner sense is the understanding and its original faculty of combining the manifold of intuition, i.e., of bringing it under an apperception (as that on which its very possibility rests)." (B153; p.257c) Now, the understanding does not produce intuitions, and we are not able to put sense-intuitions into our understanding itself (which is purely conceptual). [But the understanding still performs a synthetic combination process, when it unifies the manifolds making up its contents. So] the understanding can be conscious of the synthesis it performs already without intuition. All unifications, whether by the understanding or the imagination, happen on account of the unity of the action which performs the unifications. So the understanding can be aware of the unity of this action, even without any regard to the sense-contents that are being unified. And in fact, it is this unity of consciousness in the understanding that is responsible for the unifications that occur in the imagination. So by means of the transcendental synthesis of the imagination, the understanding then determines the way we unify our sense-intuitions. Now let's consider again those inner intuitions of ourselves. The understanding would determine the way our imagination synthesizes those inner intuitions. So that side of us (that is, of our facultative operation) that experiences or undergoes the inner intuitions of ourselves- this side of us is the passive subject.

Under the designation of a transcendental synthesis of the imagination, [the understanding] therefore exercises that action on the passive subject, whose faculty it is, about which we rightly say that the inner sense is thereby affected. (B153-154; p.257-258, bracketed substitution and emphases are mine)

The synthetic unity of apperception is what foremost enables the combination of manifolds. Our inner sense provides us with manifolds that are already temporally conditioned. This provides the grounds for their combinations, arrangements, and organizations, but this temporality is not by itself these combinations. That requires the understanding to guide the imagination, which means it requires the unity of apperception in the understanding to provide the ground for the transcendental synthesis of the imagination. Also, we combine our intuitions according to the conceptual categories that we use to understand them. The synthetic unity of apperceptions, then, is not at all the same as our inner sense. Our inner sense is merely what receives our internal intuitions. It does not contain the understanding's categories, rather, it only has the mere form of intuition [as being spatial or temporal]. But because the inner sense does not by itself combine the intuitions, the inner sense then does not posses any determinate intuitions, "which is possible only through the transcendental action of the imagination (synthetic influence of the understanding on the inner sense), which I have named figurative synthesis" (B154; p.258ab).

So we only have determinate intuitions when our understanding aids our imagination in giving shape or figure to our intuitions. So we might think of the concept of a line in general. But we cannot think about some line unless we draw it in our thought. We need then our understanding to tell our imaginations how to arrange its parts. And while we carry with us the pure form of time as an a priori representation, we cannot represent time to ourselves in such a way that we understand it, unless we draw a straight line to represent the way inner intuitions succeed one another, using some of the properties of space an analogous medium to represent time, even though time is not at all spatial.

we cannot even represent time without, in drawing a straight line (which is to be the external figurative representations of time), attending merely to the action of the synthesis of the manifold through which we successively determine the inner sense, and thereby attending to the succession of this determination in inner sense. (B154; p.258bc)

So we understand time by representing it with one-dimensional space. But the moments of time are not like the points on a line, because the points on a line are simultaneous. So instead we think of the line in terms of a line or trace of motion. And we obtain this sense of motion from observing our own actions. When we subtract the spatial dimension of this concept of motion, we then obtain the concept of the succession we already undergo in our inner sense. (B155; p.258c)

So for the understanding to conceive lines, it needs to apply the concept to the sense intuitions. The understanding then does not find the intuitions making a line already combined. Rather, it must produce them by affecting our inner sense.

Now we consider the "I" [the unity of the acts of the understanding] that is thinking about itself, and also the "I" [the unity of the acts of inner sense] that is being thought. We might consider them also as (a) the I as intelligence and thinking subject that cognizes (b) the self as an object that appears to us as a phenomenon and that is being thought. But if they are both unities of the same self, then how do we explain their distinction in this action of the self-affection of self-awareness?

[Kant will draw an analogy to our experience of external things. They appear to us insofar as they affect us. We cognize them then as appearances (which are their affections on us), but not as they are in themselves. Likewise, we cognize ourselves in terms of how we appear to ourselves, but not as we really are.] Consider how we can only cognize time by using the image of a line. But time is not something external like space. [So we cognize time in terms of how we are affected by something non-temporal, even though this non-temporal thing represents the way that time appears to us. Hence we cognize time not as it is in itself, but by means of an affection which represents the way time appears to us.] [Also consider how we use clocks to measure time or tell us the times that events happen.] We need the alterability of an external thing (and its external affections on us) to represent to us our inner experience of time, which is not external or spatial. Now, we cognize external objects according to how we are externally affected by them. In a similar manner, we intuit ourselves according to how we are internally affected by our selves. [So there is a part of us that is who we are in ourselves, and that self affects us internally in such a way that we appear to ourselves. We then cognize ourselves in terms of those appearances or internal affections, and not in terms of the selves as we are in ourselves which are doing that affection. Here Kant seems to be saying that who we are in ourselves can affect our very same selves, and as a consequence of that self-affection, there is a representation of ourselves presented to ourselves, this representation being the way we appear to ourselves when we affect ourselves. Hence it is not a contradiction to think that there is a part of us that is the cognizer and a part of us that is the cognized. This is because the part of us that is the cognizer is who we are in ourselves, and the part of us that is cognized is who we are as we appear to ourselves, when the cognizer affects itself and thereby appears to itself.]

From the text of the Meiklejohn translation:

SS 20.

Of the Application of the Categories to Objects of the Senses

in general.

The pure conceptions of the understanding apply to objects of intuition in general, through the understanding alone, whether the intuition be our own or some other, provided only it be sensuous, but are, for this very reason, mere forms of thought, by means of which alone no determined object can be cognized. The synthesis or conjunction of the manifold in these conceptions relates, we have said, only to the unity of apperception, and is for this reason the ground of the possibility of a priori cognition, in so far as this cognition is dependent on the understanding. This synthesis is, therefore, not merely transcendental, but also purely intellectual. But because a certain form of sensuous intuition exists in the mind a priori which rests on the receptivity of the representative faculty (sensibility), the understanding, as a spontaneity, is able to determine the internal sense by means of the diversity of given representations, conformably to the synthetical unity of apperception, and thus to cogitate the synthetical unity of the apperception of the manifold of sensuous intuition a priori, as the condition to which must necessarily be submitted all objects of human intuition. And in this manner the categories as mere forms of thought receive objective reality, that is, application to objects which are given to us in intuition, but that only as phenomena, for it is only of phenomena that we are capable of a priori intuition.

This synthesis of the manifold of sensuous intuition, which is possible and necessary a priori, may be called figurative (synthesis speciosa), in contradistinction to that which is cogitated in the mere category in regard to the manifold of an intuition in general, and is called connection or conjunction of the understanding (synthesis intellectualis). Both are transcendental,

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not merely because they themselves precede a priori all experience, but also because they form the basis for the possibility of other cognition a priori.

But the figurative synthesis, when it has relation only to the originally synthetical unity of apperception, that is to the transcendental unity cogitated in the categories, must, to be distinguished from the purely intellectual conjunction, be entitled the transcendental synthesis of imagination.* Imagination is the faculty of representing an object even without its presence in intuition. Now, as all our intuition is sensuous, imagination, by reason of the subjective condition under which alone it can give a corresponding intuition to the conceptions of the understanding, belongs to sensibility. But in so far as the synthesis of the imagination is an act of spontaneity, which is determinative, and not, like sense, merely determinable, and which is consequently able to determine sense a priori, according to its form, conformably to the unity of apperception, in so far is the imagination a faculty of determining sensibility a priori, and its synthesis of intuitions according to the categories must be the transcendental synthesis of the imagination. It is an operation of the understanding on sensibility, and the first application of the understanding to objects of possible intuition, and at the same time the basis for the exercise of the other functions of that faculty. As figurative, it is distinguished from the merely intellectual synthesis, which is produced by the understanding alone, without the aid of imagination. Now, in so far as imagination is spontaneity, I sometimes call it also the productive imagination, and distinguish it from the reproductive, the synthesis of which is subject entirely to empirical laws, those of association, namely, and which, therefore, contributes nothing to the explanation of the possibility of a priori cognition, and for this reason belongs not to transcendental philosophy, but to psychology.

* See note on p. 34.

We have now arrived at the proper place for explaining the paradox which must have struck every one in our exposition of the internal sense (SS 6), namely -- how this sense represents us to our own consciousness, only as we appear to ourselves, not as we are in ourselves, because, to wit, we intuite

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ourselves only as we are inwardly affected. Now this appears to be contradictory, inasmuch as we thus stand in a passive relation to ourselves; and therefore in the systems of psychology, the internal sense is commonly held to be one with the faculty of apperception, while we, on the contrary, carefully distinguish them.

That which determines the internal sense is the understanding, and its original power of conjoining the manifold of intuition, that is, of bringing this under an apperception (upon which rests the possibility of the understanding itself). Now, as the human understanding is not in itself a faculty of intuition, and is unable to exercise such a power, in order to conjoin, as it were, the manifold of its own intuition, the synthesis of understanding is, considered per se, nothing but the unity of action, of which, as such, it is self -- conscious, even apart from sensibility, by which, moreover, it is able to determine our internal sense in respect of the manifold which may be presented to it according to the form of sensuous intuition. Thus, under the name of a transcendental synthesis of imagination, the understanding exercises an activity upon the passive subject, whose faculty it is; and so we are right in saying that the internal sense is affected thereby. Apperception and its synthetical unity are by no means one and the same with the internal sense. The former, as the source of all our synthetical conjunction, applies, under the name of the categories, to the manifold of intuition in general, prior to all sensuous intuition of objects. The internal sense, on the contrary, contains merely the form of intuition, but without any synthetical conjunction of the manifold therein, and consequently does not contain any determined intuition, which is possible only through consciousness of the determination of the manifold by the transcendental act of the imagination (synthetical influence of the understanding on the internal sense), which I have named figurative synthesis.

This we can indeed always perceive in ourselves. We cannot cogitate a geometrical line without drawing it in thought, nor a circle without describing it, nor represent the three dimensions* of space without drawing three lines from the same point* perpendicular to one another. We cannot even cogitate time, unless, in drawing a straight line (which is to

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serve as the external figurative representation of time), we fix our attention on the act of the synthesis of the manifold, whereby we determine successively the internal sense, and thus attend also to the succession of this determination. Motion as an act of the subject (not as a determination of an object),* consequently the synthesis of the manifold in space, if we make abstraction of space and attend merely to the act by which we determine the internal sense according to its form, is that which produces the conception of succession. The understanding, therefore, does by no means find in the internal sense any such synthesis of the manifold, but produces it, in that it affects this sense. At the same time, how "I who think" is distinct from the "I" which intuites itself (other modes of intuition being cogitable as at least possible), and yet one and the same with this latter as the same subject; how, therefore, I am able to say: "I, as an intelligence and thinking subject, cognize myself as an object thought, so far as I am, moreover, given to myself in intuition -- only, like other phenomena, not as I am in myself, and as considered by the understanding, but merely as I appear" -- is a question that has in it neither more nor less difficulty than the question -- "How can I be an object to myself?" or this -- "How I can be an object of my own intuition and internal perceptions?" But that such must be the fact, if we admit that space is merely a pure form of the phenomena of external sense, can be clearly proved by the consideration that we cannot represent time, which is not an object of external intuition, in any other way than under the image of a line, which we draw in thought, a mode of representation without which we could not cognize the unity of its dimension, and also that we are necessitated to take our determination of periods of time, or of points of time, for all our internal perceptions from the changes which we perceive in outward things. It follows that we must arrange the determinations of the internal sense, as phenomena in time, exactly in the same manner as we arrange those of the

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external senses in space. And consequently, if we grant, respecting this latter, that by means of them we know objects only in so far as we are affected externally, we must also confess, with regard to the internal sense, that by means of it we intuite ourselves only as we are internally affected by ourselves; in other words, as regards internal intuition, we cognize our own subject only as phenomenon, and not as it is in itself.*

* Length, breadth, and thickness. -- Tr.

* In different planes. -- Tr.

* Motion of an object in space does not belong to a pure science, consequently not to geometry; because, that a thing is movable cannot be known a priori, but only from experience. But motion, considered as the description of a space, is a pure act of the successive synthesis of the manifold in external intuition by means of productive imagination, and belongs not only to geometry, but even to transcendental philosophy.

* I do not see why so much difficulty should be found in admitting that our internal sense is affected by ourselves. Every act of attention exemplifies it. In such an act the understanding determines the internal sense by the synthetical conjunction which it cogitates, conformably to the internal intuition which corresponds to the manifold in the synthesis of the understanding. How much the mind is usually affected thereby every one will be able to perceive in himself.

Summary based on:

Kant. Critique of Pure Reason. Eds. & Transls. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Full text taken from:

Kant. Critique of Pure Reason. Transl. J.M.D Meiklejohn.

Available at:

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KanPure.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public∂=all