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Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy Lecture 9 Things as they appear and things as they are in themselves

A crucial distinction In order to understand Kant’s theoretical philosophy, we must always bear in mind the distinction between • things as they appear to us; • things as they are in themselves. Transcendental Aesthetic • Space is not a property of things as they are in themselves. (It is not transcendentally real.) • Space is a property of outer objects as they appear to us. (It is empirically real.)

A crucial distinction In order to understand Kant’s theoretical philosophy, we must always bear in mind the distinction between • things as they appear to us; • things as they are in themselves. Transcendental Aesthetic • Time is not a property of things as they are in themselves. (It is not transcendentally real.) • Time is a property of inner states as they appear to us. (It is empirically real.)

A crucial distinction In order to understand Kant’s theoretical philosophy, we must always bear in mind the distinction between • things as they appear to us; • things as they are in themselves. Transcendental Analytic • Causality is not a relation that holds between things as they are in themselves. • It is a relation that holds between things as they appear to us.

A crucial distinction In order to understand Kant’s theoretical philosophy, we must always bear in mind the distinction between • things as they appear to us; • things as they are in themselves. Transcendental Analytic • We can have no positive knowledge of things as they are in themselves. • We have what knowledge of things as they appear we usually think of ourselves as having.

A crucial distinction How are we to understand the distinction? • I have gone into very little detail about this. • We have considered one question in this area: • Two worlds? The world of appearances and the world of things in themselves? OR • Two aspects? The world as it appears and the same world but as it is in itself?

A crucial distinction How are we to understand the distinction? • I have gone into very little detail about this. • We have considered one question in this area: • Two worlds? The world of appearances and the world of things in themselves? OR • Two aspects? The world as it appears and the same world but as it is in itself? In this lecture, I go into more detail and try to establish the ‘two aspect’ interpretation.

A suggestive (and quite long) passage Idealism consists in the assertion that there are none but thinking beings; all other things which we believe are perceived in intuitions are nothing by representations in the thinking beings, to which no object external to them in fact corresponds. On the contrary, I say that things as objects of our senses existing outside us are given, but we know nothing of what they may be in themselves, knowing only their appearances, i.e., the representations they cause in us by affecting our senses [...]

A suggestive (and quite long) passage Long before Locke’s time, but assuredly since him, it has been generally assumed and granted without detriment to the actual existence of external things that many of their predicates may be said to belong, not to the things in themselves, but to their appearances, and to have no proper existence outside our representation. Heat, colour, and taste, for instance, are of this kind. Now, if I go further and, for weighty reasons, rank as mere appearances also the remaining qualities of bodies, which are called primary [...] no one in the least can adduce the reason of its being inadmissible.

A suggestive (and quite long) passage As little as the man who admits colours not to be properties of the object in itself but only to be modifications of the sense of sight should on that account be called an idealist, so little can my doctrine be named idealistic merely because I find that more, nay, all the properties which constitute the intuition of a body belong merely to its appearance. The existence of the thing that appears is thereby not destroyed, as in genuine idealism, but it is only shown that we cannot possibly know it by the senses as it is in itself. (Prolegomena, Section 13, Remark II)

A suggestive (and quite long) passage Primary qualities

Locke

Kant

Space, extension, etc.

Secondary qualities Colours, taste, heat, etc.

Space, extension, etc. Colours, taste, heat, etc.

A problem with this passage Which account of secondary qualities does Kant intend when he draws the analogy between • space and time and • traditional secondary qualities?

A problem with this passage It must make the following claims true: (1) There is an element of mind-dependence to the spatial properties of an objects, and an element of mindindependence. (2) Causation does not occur between things as they are in themselves. (3) We know nothing of things as they are in themselves Is there such an account?

The two traditional accounts Locke: secondary qualities are dispositions in the object to produce a certain sort of idea in us. Such Qualities, which in truth are nothing in the Objects themselves, but Powers to produce various Sensations in us by their primary Qualities, i.e., by the Bulk, Figure, Texture, and Motion of their insensible parts. [...] ...the ideas of primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them, and their patterns do really exist in the bodies themselves, but the ideas produced in us by these secondary qualities have no resemblance of them at all. (Locke, Essay, II.viii.14-15)

The two traditional accounts This violates conditions (2) and (3): (2) Causation does not occur between things as they are in themselves. • Dispositions are causal powers of a certain sort. (3) We know nothing of things as they are in themselves • Knowing dispositions seems like substantial knowledge of things as they are in themselves.

The two traditional accounts Berkeley: secondary qualities are properties of ideas in the mind. You must know sensible qualities are by philosophers divided into primary and secondary. The former are extension, figure, solidity, gravity, motion, and rest. And these they hold exist really in bodies. The latter are those above enumerated [colours, sounds, tastes, etc.]; or, briefly, all sensible qualities beside the primary, which they assert are only so many sensations or ideas existing nowhere but in the mind. (Berkeley, Three Dialogues, First Dialogue)

The two traditional accounts This phenomenalist reading violates condition (1): (1) There is an element of mind-dependence to the spatial properties of an objects, and an element of mind-independence.

A direct perception account • The failure of the Berkeleian account shows that the spatial properties must belong to the outer object, not to our representation of it. • The failure of the Lockean account shows that the spatial properties cannot belong to the outer object as dispositions to provoke a certain sort of idea. Rather, we want an account on which the spatial properties belong to the object, but in such a way that this fact does not reduce to facts about (i) ideas and (ii) what causes them.

A direct perception account (Allais) This suggests that we must move away from what is called the representational theory of perception: S perceives object x iff S has an idea of x that is caused by x in a suitable way. In fact, Kant wanted to move away from this Cartesian picture anyway. What we require in its place is a theory of direct perception: S perceives object x iff S is directly conscious of the object x itself, and not of a representation of the object.

A direct perception account (Allais) In fact, Berkeley also rejected the Cartesian picture. He also favoured a theory of direct perception. He saw in the gap between the idea and the thing perceived the source of scepticism. But he combined this view with the view that it is ideas and not external objects of which we are directly conscious. This gives dogmatic idealism.

A direct perception account (Allais) John Campbell’s analogy: • Suppose we perceive objects through a pane of glass. • We do not say that we perceive their images on the glass, and infer the existence of the objects. • Rather, we perceive the objects through the glass. • Similarly, we do not perceive outer objects by being conscious of their images and inferring a cause of those images (veil of perception). • Rather, we perceive the outer objects directly.

A direct perception account (Allais) How do we understand secondary qualities on this account? • If the pane of glass is completely flat and perfectly colourless, then it provides a model on which all properties are primary qualities. • However, if the glass were distorted but colourless, for instance, then there would be some primary qualities (such as colour) and some secondary qualities (such as shape). • On Kant’s account, the whole pane is distorted and coloured and so on. That is, there are no primary qualities.

A direct perception account (Allais) (I) Thus, when I perceive an outer object with its spatial properties, my perception depends on the way that the object is. In this sense, its spatial properties are mindindependent. That is, they are properties of the object; they are not properties of elements of our mind. Spatial properties are empirically real.

A direct perception account (Allais) (II) However, I perceive only those properties of the object that is has as it appears to me. They are not properties that can be truly attributed to it other than relative to a particular way of perceiving it, namely, ours. In this sense, its spatial properties are mind-dependent they are properties it does not have other than relative our way of perceiving it. Spatial properties are transcendentally ideal.

A direct perception account (Allais) (III) Does this result in an account on which things as they are in themselves stand in causal relations? No. The outer objects certainly do cause the inner representations of them. But this is a relation that holds of them only as they appear to us. After all, the notion of causation involves spatial and temporal components. (IV) Does this result in an account on which we know of things as they are in themselves? No. We know things about outer objects. But we know only what is true of them as they appear to us. We know nothing of them as they are in themselves.

Reading for the seminar • Kant, I. Phenomena and Noumena Critique of Pure Reason; Section 13 Remarks II and III Prolegomena • Allais, Lucy (2007) ‘Kant’s Idealism and the Secondary Quality Analogy’ Journal of the History of Philosophy 45(3): 459-484 Questions for the seminar (1) Is the theory of direct perception plausible? (2) Can it cope with non-veridical perceptions, such as of a stick that looks bent in water? (3) What account can Kant give of colour within his transcendental idealism?