Notes on <Kant's Transcendental Idealism> - Objective Validity and Objective Reality : The Transcendental Deduction of Categories

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We’ll focus on the Second Edition of Transcendental Deduction. Argument in Second Edition Deduction is structured in a way that the central problem is the demonstration of a connection between the intellectual and sensible conditions of human knowledge.

The argument is divided to two parts, the first part (15-21) asserts the necessity of categories with respect to objects of sensible intuition in general. Any sensible content must be subject to the categories if it is to be brought to the unity of consciousness. The second part(24-26) argues for the necessity of categories with respect to human sensibility and its data. This part presupposes the results of the Transcendental Aesthetic. (Note that this is the common view of modern Kant scholars, the old Kant scholars have the view that this is two aspects of the same argument, one object and one subject, and the objective one is more essential. See lecture)

The two parts of the argument must be treated in two steps in a single proof. The two parts contains two different claims about the categories and operate with two different conceptions of an object. The first part of the Deduction is concerned with the objective validity of the categories and the second part with their objective reality.

The key point for objective validity of a judgment is that it’s defined as its capacity to be either true or false. A judgment is objectively valid if the synthesis of representation which it contains is “grounded” or “legitimate”. To say that the categories are objectively valid is to claim that they make possible an objectively valid synthesis of representations, a judgment. And since only through judgment can we represent object. The objective validity of categories are necessary conditions for the representation of objects.

By contrast, objective reality has an ontological sense. To claim a concept has objective reality is to claim that it refers to an actual object that is given us in intuition. We can see this connection is made in the second part of the Deduction by the conception of the transcendental synthesis of imagination.

This chapter is divided into three main sections. First is for the first half of the Deduction. Second is with analysis of the important contrast between the objective and subjective unities of consciousness. Third is about the second half of the Deduction. The author argues that this portion of the proof is only partially successful.

Apperception, Synthesis and Objectivity

The Transcendental Unity of Apperception

The starting point of Transcendental Deduction is the transcendental unity of apperception. In B131-132(section 16), Kant says “it must be possible for the I think to accompany all my representations”. This principle affirms only the necessity of the possibility of attaching the ‘I think’, not the necessity of actually doing so. Second, it only affirms the necessity of this possibility if the representation is to function as a representation, to represent some object. The claim that a representation is “nothing to me” simply means that I cannot represent it to myself, not that it is nonexistent.

If the Deduction is to get off the ground, Kant must link this principle with the representation of a manifold of intuition. The first step is to note that any representation of a manifold as a manifold is a single complex thought. It involves a “synthetic unity of representations”.

The next step is to show that a single complex thought requires a single thinking subject. Support for this is in Second Edition of Second Paralogism. Without a logically simple subject we would have merely the multiplicity of elements and not the conception of their unity.

Then we want to connect the last result to the initial claim regarding the necessity of the possibility of reflectively attaching the ‘I think’ to all of my representations. It yields the principle of the necessary identity of apperception. The point is like this: since a single complex thought logically requires a single thinking subject, it follows that (1) it must be a numerically identical ‘I think’ that can be reflectively attached to each of the component representations taken individually and (2) it must be possible for this thinking subject to be aware of the numerical identity of the ‘I think’.

This helps us to understand the connection between the unity of consciousness and the numerical identity of the ‘I think’.

There are different readings of A116 on what it is that we are supposed to be conscious of a priori. One reading is that we are aware of our numerical identity a priori. The second, more plausible reading is the possibility of such a consciousness, but not its actuality or necessity. The principle asserts the “necessity of a possibility” of becoming reflectively aware of an identical ‘I think’ with respect to each of my representations.

The Necessity of Synthesis

(B133) Contains two distinct claims with the conclusion that the analytic unity of apperception presupposes “a certain synthetic unity”. First claim is that consciousness of the identity of the ‘I think’ contains a synthesis. Second is that it is possible only through a consciousness of this synthesis.

Before talking about that we want to first talk about section 15. The manifold can be given in a purely sensible intuition and the form of this intuition can be regarded as the mode in which the subject is affected.

The combination of a manifold in general can never come to us through the senses, and can’t be contained in the pure form of sensible intuition. For it is an act of spontaneity of the faculty of representation and it must be entitled understanding. We must synthesize if we are to represent anything as synthesized. An act of spontaneity(synthesis) must be presupposed as a necessary condition of the possibility of the representation of any synthetic unity.

Given these preliminaries we are now ready to examine Kant’s two claims about the transcendental unity of apperception. (1) it contains a synthesis and (2) it is only possible through a consciousness of this synthesis. One thing to keep in mind is that the consciousness of an identical ‘I think’ is also an act of spontaneity.

It contains a synthesis because for the subject in I think representation A and I think representation B to be aware of the identity of the I, it must combine A and B in a single consciousness, so it “contain” a synthesis.

The claim that apperception is possible only through a consciousness of the synthesis means that the awareness of the identity of the ‘I think’ involves an awareness of the synthesis or combination that it “contains”. This claim is more complex than the previous one because of the ambiguity of ‘synthesis’. It can be an act or the product of the act. The awareness of the identity of the I that thinks A with the I that thinks B requires an awareness of both A and B because I of the ‘I think’ has no determinate content and thus cannot be characterized apart from its representations. If consciousness of synthesis means an awareness of the activity itself. Then we can show that apperception involves not only the identification of the I that thinks A and B but also the I that thinks each with the I that thinks both together in a single consciousness. However, the subject cannot make this identification unless it is aware of its act of combining both of these representations in a single consciousness.

The doctrine of apperception in the Second Edition Deduction is most properly viewed as a formal model or schema for the analysis of the understanding and its “logical” activities. Correlatively the theory of synthesis implied by this doctrine is to be taken as an analytical account of the mode of operation of the model. This modeling function provides the basis for the transcendental status assigned to the principle of apperception and for the claim that all of our representations must conform to its conditions if they are not epistemically null.

Apperception and Objects

The essential move in the first part of the Deduction is the attempt to establish a reciprocal connection between the transcendental unity of apperception and the representation of objects. It is the specific concern for section 17. Given this Kant can introduce his conception of judgment as “nothing but the manner in which given modes of knowledge are brought to the objective unity of apperception”. This in turn provide the basis for the connection between apperception and categories.

Understanding is, to use general terms, the faculty of knowledge. This knowledge consists in the determinate relation of given representations to an object; and an object is that in the concept of which the manifold of a given intuition is united. Now all unification of representations demands unity of consciousness in the synthesis of them. Consequently it is the unity of consciousness that alone constitutes the relation of representations to an object, and therefore their objective validity and the fact that they are modes of knowledge; and upon it therefore rests the very possibility of the understanding [B137]

We are told that the characteristic activity of understanding is to relate given representations (intuitions) to an object. This immediately gives rise to the question of what is meant by an object, and we see that it’s simply that in the concept of which the manifold of a given intuition is united. This definition reflects Kant’s Copernican Revolution: first order talk about objects is replaced by second order talk about the conception of an object and the conditions of its conception (epistemic conditions). The meaning of ‘object’ is thus to be determined by an analysis of these conditions. The root claim is that the act of conceiving, knowing, understanding or judging about an object = x consists in the unification of the manifold of the intuition of x by means of a concept. It follows that a concept through which such unification is achieved counts as a “concept of an object” and is thus objectively valid. This is central to Kant’s endeavor to establish the objective validity of the categories.

This conception of object is also key to the understanding of Kant’s attempt to link the unity of consciousness with the representation of objects. The crucial claim is that “it is the unity of consciousness that alone constitutes the relation of representations to an object and therefore their objective validity”. However Kant here seems to take the unity of consciousness as both necessary and sufficient condition for the representation of object but we can only show that it is necessary condition.

If object is taken in the broad sense as in section 17 then it is fine. Since unity of consciousness is impossible apart from a synthetic unity of representations and since this synthetic unity can only be achieved by uniting these representations under a concept and since any such synthetic unity counts as an object it also follows that the representation of an object is a necessary condition for the unity of consciousness, which is equivalent to say that unity of consciousness is a sufficient condition for representation of object.

Kant construes the judgmental conception of an object very broadly. It includes not only physical objects but also properties of these objects, even abstract objects such as reason. The only constraint is that it must function as a logical subject in a judgment and its conception must involve the synthetic unity of representations.

The synthetic unity of consciousness is, therefore, an objective condition of all knowledge. It is not merely a condition that I myself require in knowing an object, but is a condition under which every intuition must stand in order to become an object for me. For otherwise, in the absence of this synthesis, the manifold would not be united in one consciousness. [B138]

The Problem of Subjective Unity

Before turning to second part of the Deduction, it’s necessary to consider the distinction between an objective and subjective unity of consciousness. The question is what sense can be given to subjective unity and to the claim that it has subjective validity?

Judgments of Perception and Judgments of Experience

Kant intends this as a distinction between two species of empirical judgment. Judgments of experience have objective validity and judgments of perception only have subjective validity.

He claims that objective validity and necessary universality (for everyone) are equivalent terms. He suggests a connection between objective validity and intersubjective agreement.

Subjective validity is ambiguous term itself. In one sense it means that it holds only for the subject (it is believed by a subject) and in the other sense it means that it is true merely of the subject (they are about the subject and its cognitive states).

Given the doctrine of the Critique, the denial of any role for the categories in judgments of perception is equally problematic since judgments of perception also must make use of the categories. Even dreaming involves the categories, that’s probably why Kant characterizes the representations which do not conform to the conditions of the unity of apperception “less even than a dream”.

The Subjective Unity of Consciousness: Not Less, but Other Than a Dream

Kant affirms the necessity of categories for all conscious representation. Thus the emphasis on the claim that a unity of consciousness, and with it the categories, is required even for a consciousness of our mental states.

In Reflexion he also discusses the function of the imagination in dreams. Kant’s point is that even this purely subjective play of representation can be brought to consciousness and represented as an object. Then what is subjective unity of consciousness if it is not a unity through which we represent to ourselves our own subject states or condition?

There is in fact only one thing that can count as a subjective unity in Kant’ sense: a unity of representations through which nothing is represented, not even our subjective states. First its elements must be representations and they must stand in some order or connection with one another. Second, no object can be represented by means of this order or connect. So it’s more of a “nonobjective” rather than subjective unity.

An example of subjective unity is Hume’s disposition of association since we can associate representations without objective connection. This association is the product of past conditioning (custom or habit), it cannot be attributed to the spontaneity of thought. Kant assigns it to the reproductive imagination. My empirical knowledge of the fact that I associate these representations does not itself occur by means of their association. On the contrary, it requires a reflective act of thought which must be in accord with the conditions of the objective unity of self-consciousness. This claim is implicit in letter to Hertz and in the Reflexion, the question is whether we can find this in the Second Edition of the Critique. We need to look at section 18 and 19.

One of the factors that indicate Kant has this conception of subjective unity in mind in the Critique is that he refers to the subjective unity as a unity of consciousness and objective unity as a unity of self-consciousness because it is possible through it to become aware of an identical ‘I think’ but it’s not the case for subjective unity. We should not be mislead by the fact that we can become conscious of such a subjective unity as a “subjective object”. The Kantian conception of self-consciousness concerns the thought of the “I” as subject of thought, not the empirical knowledge through inner sense of the “me”. The apperception of an identical “I think” must be possible in connection with the reflective and objectively valid representation of the subjective unity in a judgment of inner sense, but it is not possible through the subjective unity itself. A subjective unity of consciousness is not a unity of self-consciousness, although it can (as objectified) become a unity for self-conscious thought.

Subjective unity of apperception is “subjective” in two senses. First it is subjective in the sense of being mental. Second, in the sense of being non-objective or non-representational. For example, we do not represent to ourselves an objective order by means of the successive reception of the sensible data in inner sense.

Unfortunately, this is not everything that Kant has to say about this unity. Empirical unity of apperception, which is merely derived from the transcendental or “original” unity of apperception under given conditions in concreto, has only subjective validity. (B140). Kant also seems to regard empirical apperception as equivalent to empirical self-consciousness, as the mode of consciousness through which we represent ourselves to ourselves as objects in inner sense. Consequently, the subjective unity of consciousness is here being identified with the consciousness or representation of one’s subjective states rather than with the subjective states themselves. That is why it’s said to be subjectively valid. However, Kant’s theory of judgment commits him to regard such representations as objectively valid judgments of inner sense.

Similarly there are serious difficulties in interpreting what Kant means by the empirical unity of apperception is derived from transcendental unity “under given conditions in concreto”. There seem to be only two possible ways.

  1. Kant’s point is that although the content of empirical apperception is determined by empirical factors, its form as a mode of consciousness is subject to the transcendental conditions of unity. The problem with this claim is that the assignment of subjective validity to this form of consciousness contradicts the principle that it is subject to the transcendental conditions of unity since Kant claims that the transcendental unity of apperception is an objective unity.

  2. The order in which perceptions occur in inner sense is determined by causal laws and is in that sense subject to the transcendental conditions of experience. Things are more confused in this case. First it makes no sense to say the order is subjectively valid. The notion of validity is only applicable to the representation of this order, not to the order itself. Second, Kant should have said that the representation of this order is objectively valid. Third, Kant would never assert that the representation of the thought of this causally determined order is itself causally determined.

It seems both interpretations involves incoherence, which is introduced by conflating the empirical unity of apperception with the subjective unity of apperception.

We can detect a similar confusion in section 19 in connection with the account of judgment. Kant contrasts “If I support a body, I feel an impression of weight” and “It, the body, is heavy”. He claims this is a contrast between subjective unity of apperception and objective unity of apperception and the second one is saying heavy is contained in the object, no matter what the state of the subject may be. However, actually both of them are examples of objective unity of consciousness. The subjective unity would be the mere association of the impression of weight with the impression of body.

Imagination, Apperception, Perception and Experience

Kant provides two distinct characterizations of the task of the second part of the Deduction. In section 21 he describes it as showing “from the mode in which the empirical intuition is given in sensibility, that its unity is none other than that which the category … prescribes to the manifold of a given intuition in general” (B145). In section 26 he describes it as explaining “the possibility of knowing a priori by means of the category whatever objects may present themselves to our senses, not indeed in respect to the form of their intuition, but in respect of the law of their combination, and so, as it were, of prescribing laws to nature, and even of making nature possible” (B159).

Neither of the goals was achieved by the first part of the Deduction. The first part of Deduction establishes the necessity of categories for representing an object in the judgmental or logical sense. It does not follow that categories are applicable to the actual content of human experience, still less does it follow that the categories somehow make experience possible.

The argument consists of two steps. First Kant links the unity of apperception, and with it the categories, to time (section 24). This linkage turns on the connection of both with the transcendental synthesis of the imagination, which is the synthesis through which space and time are unified and determined. He then relates the categories to the actual data of human sensibility (section 26). The focal point the second step is the analysis of the synthesis of apperception, which is the synthesis constitutive of empirical intuition. Only by showing that this synthesis is likewise governed by the categories can Kant connect them with the actual content of empirical intuition and thus establish their objective reality.

A Transcendental Synthesis of the Imagination

Kant begins the argument of the second part of the Deduction by introducing the distinction between an intellectual and a figurative synthesis. The former is the activity of judgment through which a given manifold of representations is brought to the objective unity of apperception. The notion of figurative synthesis encompasses any imaginative synthesis, including the formation of an image. If the argument is to work, Kant must show that first, this synthesis is responsible for the unification and determination of time, and second, that it is governed by the categories.

Among the most important materials is the characterization of imagination as “the faculty of representing in intuition an object that is not itself present” (B151). The significance of this characterization stems from the fact that it makes clear why the imagination is required for the representation of time and space as they are described in the Transcendental Aesthetic. Let’s first consider time. The Transcendental Aesthetic shows that each extent of time is represented as a determinate portion of a single all-inclusive time. However, this all inclusive time is not itself actually given in intuition as an object. It is given only one moment at a time. Nevertheless, in order to represent the particular portion of time, I must be able to represent past and future time, and ultimately the single time of which all determinate times are parts. This is what imagination enables me to do. Similarly for space.

The second part and perhaps most problematic aspect of Kant’s doctrine is the claim that the imaginative synthesis is governed by the categories. Only by establishing such a connection can Kant demonstrate the connection between the categories and human sensibility that is needed for the explanation of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments. Thus this is central to the whole program of the Critique. However, Kant seems to beg rather than to answer this question. Instead of providing an argument, he simply claims dogmatically that the imaginative synthesis is an expression of the spontaneity of thought, that it determines inner sense a priori in respect of its form, and that this determination is in accord with the unity of apperception.

The latter point is obviously crucial. If the determination or unification of time is necessarily in accord with the unity of apperception, then given the argument of the first part of the Deduction, it follows that it is also necessarily in accord with the categories. However we can’t proceed analytically from the unity of apperception to the unity of time. There is no purely conceptual constraint on the possibility of uniting under a concept in a judgment the representations of objects located in different time-frames. It is also why the conclusions of the Deduction are synthetic and a priori in spite of the analytic nature of the apperception principle itself.

Fortunately we can argue from the representation of the unity of time to the unity of apperception, and by this means we can connect the transcendental synthesis of the imagination with apperception and the categories. In order to do this, we need only combine the results of the first half of the Deduction with the doctrine that the unification or determination of time is produced by the transcendental synthesis of the imagination. Given the argument of the first part of the Deduction, it follows that the product of the transcendental synthesis of the imagination must accord with the conditions of the unity of apperception, otherwise it could not be represented as a unity. But the categories have been shown in the first part of the Deduction to be conditions of the unity of apperception. Consequently, the transcendental synthesis of the imagination, which produces this unity by determining time, must conform to the categories.

As we can see, Kant links the categories to the forms of human sensibility by connecting them both to the transcendental synthesis of imagination. We must reject the suggestion of Heidegger that Kant somehow “recoiled” from the transcendental imagination in the second edition.

Unfortunately, the essential function of the transcendental synthesis of the imagination in the argument is somewhat obscured by Kant’s apparent denial of any ultimate distinction between the imagination and the understanding. This is in conflict with formulation in the first edition and Metaphysical Deduction.

The Synthesis of Apperception

The demonstration of the objective reality of the categories requires more than simply establishing their connection with the forms of human sensibility; it is also necessary to establish their relationship to empirical intuition. Kant attempts to achieve this goal by linking the categories to the synthesis of apprehension. In the Second Edition he defines this synthesis as “that combination of the manifold in an empirical intuition, whereby perception, that is, empirical consciousness of the manifold is possible” (B160).

The argument consists of five steps that are compressed into another of Kant’s typical dense paragraphs (B160-161).

[Step 1.] In the representations of space and time we have a priori forms of outer and inner sensible intuition; and to these the synthesis of apprehension of the manifold of appearance must always conform because in no other way can the synthesis take place at all.

Kant here simply assumes the actuality of a synthesis of apprehension.

[Step 2.] But space and time are represented a priori not merely as forms of sensible intuition, but as themselves intuitions which contain a manifold of their own, and therefore are represented with the determination of the unity of this manifold.

Space and time are both forms of intuition and themselves intuitions with a manifold of their own. Thus they can only be represented insofar as their manifold is unified. It’s clear that transcendental synthesis of the imagination is assumed to be the vehicle for this unification (formal intuition). “The unity of the a priori intuition belongs to space and time, not to the concept of the understanding.” This means that the intuited unity of space and time is distinct from the conceptual unity that is imposed upon representations in a judgment. That’s why the synthesis involved in this representation must be viewed as an act of the imagination rather than of the understanding.

[Step 3.] Thus unity of the synthesis of the manifold, without or within us, and consequently also a combination to which everything that is to be represented as determined in space or in time must conform is given a priori as the condition of the synthesis of all apprehension - not indeed in, but with these intuitions.

Kant here says that the conditions of the unity of the representations of space or time are also conditions of the apprehension of anything in space or time. Therefore anything that is apprehended in a determinate position in space or time must conform to the conditions of the representation of their unity. The unification of the representation of space or time is achieved through the transcendental synthesis of the imagination, it also serves to connect the synthesis of apprehension to this transcendental synthesis. The claim that this synthetic unity is given “not in, but with these intuitions” reflects Kant’s basic principle that the representation of unity presupposes a synthetic activity, and is not simply passively received through sensibility.

[Step 4.] This synthetic unity can be no other than the unity of the combination of the manifold of a given intuition in general in an original consciousness, in accordance with the categories, insofar as the combination is applied to our sensible intuition.

This is the key step, for it is here that Kant actually links the synthesis of apprehension with the categories. There is, however, no argument offered in support of this step. Instead, Kant dogmatically asserts that the unity required for apprehension is an application to human sensibility of the unity of the manifold of an intuition in general that is required for apperception. This licenses the claim that the former, like the latter is governed by the categories. Although Kant doesn’t give an argument, we can see that this result does follow from the assumption that the transcendental synthesis of the imagination is governed by the categories taken in connection with step 3.

In step 3 we assert that the synthesis of apprehension is subject to condition of the transcendental synthesis of the imagination, the whole weight of the argument thus falls on the claim that the transcendental synthesis of the imagination is governed by the categories. It does not follow analytically from the apperception principle, but follows from this principle taken in conjunction with the synthetic propositions that time is the form of inner sense and that imaginative synthesis is necessary for the representation of time.

[Step 5.] All synthesis, therefore, even that which renders perception possible, is subject to the categories; and since experience is knowledge by means of connected perception, the categories are conditions of the possibility of experience, and are therefore valid a priori for all objects of experience.

This is Kant’s conclusion. If we assume that there are only three kinds of synthesis (intellectual synthesis, figurative synthesis and apprehension), then the first part of this conclusion clearly follows. The second part which involves a contrast between perception and experience interjects for the first time a whole new theme to the Deduction. It also calls to mind the two formulations of the task of the second part of the Deduction. In one formulation the task is to establish a connection between the categories and empirical intuition, the other is to show that the categories function to make experience possible. Since the connection of the categories with perception, and thus with empirical intuition, follows from their role as conditions of the synthesis of apprehension, it is at least plausible to claim the argument has established the first of the goals. The remaining question is to see whether it can be said to have established the second.

Perception and Experience

Kant defines perception in the Second Edition Deduction as the empirical consciousness of intuition as appearance. The claim is that this consciousness presupposes a synthesis of apprehension. The notion of “appearance”, when it’s treated as equivalent to “perception” or as the object of a perception, must be distinguished from the transcendental conception of the thing as it appears. Appearances are modifications of inner sense. We can say that perception is a mode of consciousness that has as its objects modifications of inner sense. The order of perception is the order in which perceptions or appearances occur in empirical consciousness. It follows from the preceding argument that the consciousness of this order, and therefore the perception itself, is subject to the categories because the argument shows that the synthesis of apprehension, whereby perceptual consciousness is determined, is subject to the conditions of transcendental synthesis of the imagination, and this synthesis itself is governed by the categories.

The main difficulty comes when Kant attempts to move from perception to experience. Experience is defined as “knowledge by means of connected perceptions”. Kant wishes to show categories apply to whatever is experienced and that categories make experience possible. The problem is that the most follows from the role of categories is that categories are necessary for the connection of perceptions in “empirical consciousness”; it does not follow from it that they also function to relate these perceptions to an objective order and thus produce experience.

The problem can be clarified by considering two examples provided by Kant. The first involves the category of quantity and its role in the apprehension of a spatial object. He talks about the formulation of a perception of a house in “empirical consciousness”. Because of the nature of human sensibility, the parts of such an “object” are apprehended as external to one another in space. Kant’s point is that the apprehension presupposes a synthesis of the various spaces in which its constituent parts are apprehended. The formation of the image of a spatial object is subject to the conditions of the representation of space. And the connection between this necessary synthetic unity and the category of quantity stems from the homogeneity of the parts of space. So the apprehension of a house must be governed by the category of quantity since it is just the concept of the synthesis of the homogeneous in an intuition in general.

Second example is to illustrate the role of concept of causality. Apprehension of a determinate sequence in time presupposes the representation of the synthetic unity of time and thus is a synthesis. The claim is that the ground of this determination or synthetic unity is the category of causality.

If this argument establishes anything at all, it is only that the category of causality is necessary for the apprehension of a sequence of perceptions in inner sense. Thus rather than the expected contrast of experience with perception, what we actually find in the second example is a parallel account of the role of a category in connection with the synthesis of apprehension.

We have seen that Kant’s overall strategy is to argue first that the transcendental synthesis of the imagination is necessary for the representation of space and time and that this synthesis must accord with the categories. He then claims that the synthesis of apprehension must conform to the same categories because it must conform to the conditions of the transcendental synthesis. What we have argued is a strong case can be made for the claim that this strategy does establish this is sufficient to establish a connection between the categories and empirical intuition, and it’s sufficient to demonstrate their objective reality. However, it can’t be claimed that it succeeds in showing that the categories make experience possible.

Some Conclusions

The most obvious conclusion is that Transcendental Deduction is at best only partially successful. The problem lies in the second and synthetic portion of the argument, where Kant endeavors to connect the categories with experience by first linking them with the synthesis of apprehension. His conclusion that the categories make experience possible and prescribe a priori laws to nature does not follow.

But if the first part of Deduction is analytic and second part fails to demonstrate that the categories make experience possible, then much, if not all, of its philosophical significance would seem to be denied. This is especially true for contemporary analytic reading of the Deduction. However, there is no need to declare the Transcendental Deduction is a “botch”. First the first part of the argument provides a good beginning. Second even though it’s not completely successful, the second part of Deduction does establish the objective reality of the categories and thereby achieves one of the goals which Kant sets for it.

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