Notes on <Kant's Transcendental Idealism> - Inner Sense, Self Knowledge and the Phenomenal Self
Kant’s account of self-knowledge is rooted in his theory of inner sense, according to which we can know ourselves only insofar as we affect ourselves and, therefore, only as we appear to ourselves. The general thesis is self-knowledge is subject to the same transcendental conditions as the knowledge of objects distinct from the self. This will involve (1) an analysis of the claim that time is the form of inner sense (2) a determination of the nature of the object of inner sense and inner experience (3) an examination of Kant’s argument for the phenomenality of this object.
Time as the Form of Inner Sense
In the Critique the claim is not only that we intuit our inner states in time, but also that time cannot be outwardly intuited.
Time is nothing but the form of inner sense, that is, of the intuition of ourselves and of our inner state. It cannot be a determination of outer appearances; it has to do neither with the shape nor position; but with the relation of representations in our inner state. [A33/B49-50]
However, Kant mentions that it is only through reference to outer(spatial) objects that we can determine our own existence in time. Second, we have seen the Analogies of Experience are concerned with the conditions of the experience of an objective temporal order of appearances. These appearances certainly include objects in space. So one might ask why Kant says time cannot be a “determination” of outer appearances?
Temporal properties are all predicated of the histories, processes and events connected with things and persons, but not directly of the things and persons themselves.
As rules for the determination of appearances in time, the Analogies only apply to appearances qua existing, that is, as objects of possible experience. They do not apply to appearances, at least not to outer appearances, qua intuited, that is, apprehended in empirical consciousness. Thus the whole argument of Analogies rests not only on the distinction between things and their histories or existence, but also on the assumption that temporal properties pertain directly to the latter and indirectly to the former. This also serves to underscore the point that there is considerably more agreement between the doctrines of the Aesthetic and the Analytic than is generally assumed.
The manifest difference between the outer and inner intuition stems from the fact that what we outwardly intuit are appearances with spatial forms and properties, while what we inwardly intuit is the appearing of these very appearances, along with mental states such as feelings, in consciousness.
The Object of Inner Sense
According to Kant’s official theory, the object of inner sense is the soul, just as the object of outer sense is body. Inner experience is thus supposed to yield empirical knowledge of the soul and its states. By “soul” Kant means a separate immaterial substance with the capacity to think, feel etc.
The difficulties are many, and we shall be concerned with them throughout the remainder of the chapter. At the heart of the problem is that inner sense has no manifold of its own. This means inner sense dos not have any data that can be regarded as representations of the soul in the way in which outer intuitions are regarded as representations of body. The only available manifold for inner sense is the outer sense. “The representation of the outer senses constitute the proper material with which we occupy our mind” (B67). In this Kant rules out the obvious candidate for representation of soul and its state: feelings. Although they belong to subject as its feelings, they are not themselves representations of the subject and its states.
According to Weldon, the key to understand Kant’s doctrine of inner sense lies in its connection with that of his contemporary, the psychologist Teten. The relevant part is the distinction between an act of awareness of a given datum and an awareness of that awareness. Tetens insists the second, reflexive awareness always occurs after, not simultaneously with, the initial awareness. Moreover he assigns the second awareness to inner sense. Weldon believes that Kant borrows this from Teten.
Unfortunately, this again paints too simple a picture. One problem with such a view is that it ignores the sharp contrast that Kant draws between apperception and inner sense. Kant characterizes apperception as a “consciousness of what we are doing” and states that it “belongs to the power of thinking” while inner sense is described as “a consciousness of what we undergo insofar as we are affected by the play of our own thoughts.” We’ll deal with this problem in the next section. One of the few relatively clear aspects of Kant’s theory of self-knowledge is that the consciousness of the act of thinking is assigned to the apperception and not to inner sense. In short, Weldon’s interpretation locates a job for inner sense, but it is not the job that Kant assigns to it.
I believe that Kant’s theory of inner sense is best understood in terms of the account of the subjective unity of consciousness which we have already considered. As the same time, this theory can not be said to fulfill completely the task which Kant set for it. At best it explains how one can have sensible knowledge of one’s own representations, what is not explained is how we can have sensible knowledge of soul, mind or self, considered as the empirical subject to which these representations belong.
A “subjective unity of consciousness” is to be understood a unity of representations in a single consciousness through which nothing is represented, not even the subject’s own mental states. The point is that instead of functioning as representations which can be referred to objects in a judgment of inner sense, the representations contained in a subjective unity are themselves represented as “determinations of the mind”. Inner sense is the means through which these representations are given to the mind as its representations. Kant assumes we are aware of feelings and other mental items such as desires and volitions through inner sense.
We are now in a position to understand the full implications of Kant’s theory of self-knowledge of the claim that inner sense has no manifold of its own. This means that there are no sensible representations which we can recognize as representations of the soul, mind or self. Insofar as we concern ourselves only with inner sense and ignore apperception. There is no “impression of the self”. This might undermine the parallelism between outer and inner sense since inner sense has no manifold of its own but outer sense does. Kant’s account of inner sense explains how the mind can become aware of its own representations as “subjective objects”, but it does not explain how it can represent itself as object.
In referring its representations to itself in judgments of inner sense, it conceives of these representations as belonging to itself, as its own “subjective objects”. The self regards itself as the substratum or subject in which these representations inhere. Kant is led to what a “substratum” or “bare-particular” theory of predication when he deals with judgments of inner sense. And this I, as subject of the judgment, is non-empirical. Since I is the I of apperception and we shall see in next chapter that the merely formal nature of this I underlies the critique of rational psychology to which he here alludes.
Inner Sense and Transcendental Ideality
One of the consequences of the preceding analysis is that the application of the transcendental distinction to the object of inner sense becomes extremely problematic. If this object is regarded as the substratum or owner of its representations, then it cannot be said to appear to itself at all. So we can’t draw the distinction between this substratum as it appears and as it is in itself. Nor does it help if we take inner experience as representations themselves.
Nevertheless, Kant insist upon the transcendental ideality of the object of inner sense and the doctrine that we know ourselves only as we appear to ourselves. Underlying this doctrine is the distinction between inner sense and apperception, and apperception is considered as a mode of consciousness, with the consciousness of the I as it is in itself. Our present concern is only with the doctrine of the phenomenality of the knowledge gained through inner sense. Here it is important to distinguish between two lines of argument which Kant offers in support of the ideality thesis. We can call them “materials argument” and “self-affection argument”.
The Materials Argument
The main argument is embedded in an overall argument for the transcendental ideality for both outer and inner sense in the Second Edition of Transcendental Aesthetic. It consists simply of the conjunction of the claim that the content of intuition consists nothing but mere relations with the premise that a “thing in itself cannot be known through mere relations”. Kant first applies this to outer sense and then continues to apply it to inner sense:
This also holds true of inner sense, not only because the representations of the outer senses constitute the proper material with which we occupy our mind, but because the time in which we set these representations, which is itself antecedent to the consciousness of them in experience, and which underlies them as the formal condition of the mode in which we posit them in the mind, itself contains relations of succession, co-existence, and of that which is coexistent with succession, the enduring. [B67]
The language of the passage suggests that he construes these considerations to constitute two independent arguments for the ideality of inner sense. The first, material argument seem to have following form (1) since the materials of outer sense are also the materials of inner sense, that is, inner sense has no manifold of its own (2) since these representations contain nothing but relations; (3) since a thing in itself cannot be known through mere relations (4) it follows that we cannot represent (know) ourselves as we are in ourselves through inner sense.
So formulated the argument is obviously inadequate. In fact it has two non sequiturs. The first is that even if we assume that sensible intuition contains only relations and nothing “absolutely inner”, it still does not follow that such intuition yields a representation of the object only as it is in relation to the subject and not as it is in itself. Kant conflates two distinct these here. The first is that we can sensibly intuit only the relational properties of things; the second is that we can sensibly intuit objects only in their relation to the subject. The second non sequitur occurs in the application of the conclusion. Even if we accept the claim that through outer sense we can know objects only as they appear, it does not follow that inner sense yields a representation of the self only as it appears. Because outer intuitions are not representations of the self. If this argument establishes anything, it is that we cannot know ourselves at all, at least not through sensible intuition.
The Self-Affection Argument
We have seen that in the passage cited from Aesthetic Kant speaks of the “positing” of representations in the mind and of time as the “formal condition” of the “mode” of this positing. Later he explicitly equates this positing first with self-affection and then with the notion of apprehension. The basic idea is that the mind must affect itself in the act of apprehending its own contents to itself as these contents appear in the inner sense. From this, taken in connection with the doctrine of the ideality of time, it is inferred that the mind can know itself only “as it appears to itself, not as it is”.
The argument presupposes Kant’s general theory of sensibility, particularly the connection between sensibility and affection. Kant maintains that affection by “external objects” is the source of the matter of empirical intuition and of the materials of our knowledge. Since the mind can receive these materials only insofar as it is affected by objects, the mind is to that extent passive. The materials received through affect are subject to the mind’s own mode or condition of receptivity, that is, its “form of sensibility”, Kant infers from this that anything known through sensible intuition is known only as it appears. Since mind must affect itself in order to know itself, the knowledge which the mind has of itself is sensible in nature and concerns only the way in which it appears to itself.
The real crux of Kant’s position is that self-knowledge requires sensible intuition and therefore, an inner sense. The argument is from the “fact” of self-affection to the sensible nature of self-knowledge and to the ideality of what is known. The analogy does not seem to be very strong. As Paton remarks, the function of affection by external objects is to supply the sensible data or raw materials for knowledge, while the function of self-affection is to combine this data in consciousness in accordance with the conditions of time. The original connection between affection and sensibility rests upon an understanding of affection as outer sense. It hardly seems to follow that a comparable connection with sensibility must be assigned to self-affection. Since inner sense has no manifold of its own, self-affection cannot be regarded as the source of sensible data. But if this is denied, how are we to understand the connection between self-affection and sensibility?
The Ideality Thesis of Another Attempt
The difficulties alluded to are real enough, but they can be attributed mainly to the extremely cryptic and inadequate way in which Kant presents his doctrine. First, what Kant needs here is a distinction between two senses of “self-affection”, one connected with the transcendental synthesis and serving as a condition of all experience and the other connected with the empirical synthesis of apprehension and serving as a condition of a specifically inner experience.
The point is, in attending to its representations, the mind makes these representations into objects represented. Thus, instead of perceiving a house by means of a succession of perceptions, I might take this sequence itself as my object. As a second-order reflective act, this presupposes a prior “outer experience”. Consequently, it presupposes the transcendental synthesis of the imagination. By the same token this reflective act must be distinguished from the original and acknowledged as a “second application”. It involves an active seeking out by the mind which it endeavors to make into objects of inner sense. This also requires a change of epistemic focus, and with this change a fresh act of conceptualization. The initial conceptualization is the act that the given representation are referred to an object. The second is that the same representations become themselves objects. In the last analysis, Kant’s claim that self-knowledge requires self-affection boils down to the claim that the mind must re-conceptualize its representations in order to grasp them as objects.
We are finally in a position to deal with the problem of the connection between self-knowledge and transcendental ideality. The key to understanding this connection lies partly in the preceding account of self-affection and partly in the previously noted dual status of time. The account of self-affection enables us to see how this activity is involved in the determination of the objects of inner sense. Such objects are the products of this activity because only through it that the given contents of the mind can be represented as objects. This activity is constitutive of inner experience just as transcendental synthesis is constitutive of experience in general.
Since time is the form of the appearing of representations in inner sense, it follows that time must also be the form in which the products of its own activity appear to the mind in inner experience. In this regard, the role time plays in inner experience is analogous to that which space plays in outer experience. So time, as the form of inner sense, is the form according to which it represents something inner as an object. This means objects of inner sense are sensibly represented. Objects of inner experience are appearances, represented according to the form of their appearing in consciousness.
Insofar as the self knows itself in inner experience, it conceives itself as a conditioned object in the world, as a phenomenon. Kant is not arguing that the self knows itself only as phenomenon because he understands by “self” a subject to which both outer and inner predicates pertain. The phenomenality of the self is not a function of the corporeality of the person.
The key to understanding the doctrine lies in the dual status of time. Time functions both as the form of the appearing of representations in inner sense and as the condition of phenomenal existence. Latter mean everything that exists in this single universal time exists in the phenomenal world and vice versa. Time can be characterized as both a necessary and a sufficient condition of phenomenal existence. Now, since time is the form of appearing and since there is a only a single universal time in which all particular times are contained, it follows that by attending to the appearing of its own representations, the mind or self must place these representations in this time. Moreover, it must conceive of its own existence as determined in this same time. In attending to its own representations, the mind can be said to “inject” both them and itself into “objective time”.
Now since self exists in time, it also exist in the phenomenal world. Consequently in inner experience the self must experience the succession of its own representations as a conditioned event in the phenomenal world. So it must also experience itself as a conditioned object or thing in this world.
Through inner experience, the mind can encounter itself and its states only as a causally conditioned part of the universal order of nature, which is co-extensive with the phenomenal world.
Although outer intuition is required to establish the objective reality of the categories and Principles, they can mediately be applied to inner intuition. This second application occurs through self-affection construed as attention and it results in the injection of the contents of the mind into the phenomenal world.