The Paralogisms and Kant's View of the Self
. . . io dismento nostra vanitate
trattando l'ombre come cosa salda
--Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, Canto XXI
Introduction
In his ``Paralogisms of pure reason'' (Chapter I of Book II of Division II of Part II of the Transcendental
Doctrine of Elements in the massively hierarchical Critique of Pure Reason), Immanuel Kant returns to a
topic discussed earlier in the Critique: the ontological status of the self as
thinking being (that is, the soul). Kant disproves a number of dogmatic assertions about the
nature of the self, claiming them all to be due to a confusion between representation and thing in itself. In the
case of the first three, we are confusing our representation of the soul (by nature non-predicative, simple, and
identical) with the soul itself. In the case of the last, we confuse appearances with the things in themselves,
resulting in a false belief that external objects are of doubtful reality.
There are two versions of the paralogisms. The version contained in the A edition of the Critique is
significantly longer than that in the B edition. In the B Paralogisms of Pure Reason, Kant focuses
his attention on the analyticity (and thus empirical unsuitability) of the propositions of the paralogisms. The
A edition, on the other hand, provide a more varied assault on the paralogisms; in particular, the discussion of the
fourth paralogism is something of a precursor of the B edition's ``Refutation of Idealism''. We shall discuss
further the connections and differences between the two versions of this Chapter at the appropriate locations below.
The first paralogism states quite simply that ``I, as thinking being (soul), am substance.'' (A348). In
his criticism of the paralogism, Kant employs a technique he will go on to use in the following
paralogisms, especially in the B Critique. He grants that the soul fills the logical requirements of the
concept `substance': ``I cannot be used as the determination of another thing'' (A349) . However, according to
Kant, this does not prove that the soul persists. For ``We must rather ground the
persistence of a given object on experience if we would apply to that object the empirically usable concept of
a substance'' (A349). That is to say, the pure category of substance can prove nothing of ``objective
significance'' (A348) without an intuition grounding it. Since, as Kant has demonstrated in the
Transcendental Deduction, there is no intuition of the transcendental self (restated at A350), such a self cannot be
said to persist.
In the B paralogisms, Kant changes the definition of substance. Whereas in the A edition he allowed
that the soul might be ``a substance only in the idea but not in reality'' (A351), here he maintains that the
non-predication of the self ``does not signify that I as object am for myself a self-subsisting being or
substance'' (B407). In the A edition Kant attacks the deduction I am substance; therefore I endure, here he attacks I am always subject and never predicate; therefore I am substance.
Thus, by revising the first paralogism, Kant returns substance to its proper use: a concept applicable
only to appearances, and not to transcendental objects.
The second paralogism draws from Kant a longer critique (at least in the A edition). It states that
``the soul, or the thinking I, is such a thing [viz. a simple]'' (A351). To Kant, this
principle ``seems to withstand even the sharpest testing and the greatest scrutiny of inquiry'' (A351).
In a move paralleling the first paralogism, Kant makes the distinction between simplicity of
representation and the simplicity of a thing. Thus ``I am simple signifies no more than that . . . it
[viz. the representation I] is an absolute (though merely logical) unity'' (A355). To the
psychological proof of the simplicity of the self, Kant responds that the I ``signifies only a
Something in general (a transcendental subject), the representation of which must be of course simple
. . . certainly nothing can be represented as more simple than that which is represented through the concept of a
mere Something''. Here we see the transcendental self as it appears in the B deduction: it is neither appearance
nor thing in itself (B158), but a mere placeholder---an idea, under Kant's
strict definition of that term.
The second part of Kant's refutation of this paralogism asks: what if the self is simple?
For ``the simple nature of the soul is of unique value only insofar as through it I distinguish the subject from all
matter, and consequently except it from the perishability to which matter is always subjected'' (A356). As in the
first paralogism, where Kant shows that the self is a substance only in an objectively useless sort
of way, here he shows that the ``simplicity'' of the self is just as useless. Corporeal matter as we know it must
be regarded as appearance and not as thing-in-itself; as the Transcendental Aesthetic showed, the concepts of
extension and impenetrability, which define corporeality, are applicable only to appearances. However, the
transcendental self, as demonstrated in the Deduction, is not an appearance; we must thus
compare it to the ``Something that grounds outer appearances and affects our sense so that it receives the
representations of shape, matter, space, etc.'' (A358). However, we can know nothing about this
``transcendental object'': since it is not an object for us, we cannot know that it is not in fact ``the subject
of thoughts'' (A358). Thus, the simplicity of the self could not even prove that soul is inherently different
from matter, and thus could not prove that it is not corruptible.
In the B version of Kant's criticism of the second paralogism, things are much simpler: ten pages
have been reduced to just half a page. In part this is because much of the content has been moved to the (also
thoroughly revised) Transcendental Deduction. However, part of this change can also be attributed to the distinction
in the B paralogisms between subject and substance. Given this change, Kant no longer views the
second paralogism as ``the Achilles of all the dialectical inferences of the pure doctrine of the soul'' (A351).
Instead, his argument is a quite simple one: while the I is a simple subject (which claim ``lies already in the
concept of thinking, and is consequently an analytic proposition'' (B408), it is not thereby a simple substance.
Indeed, the claim that the soul is simple substance would be a synthetic a priori proposition---and, since it
does not pertain to possible experience, untrue (or perhaps completely nonsensical). Thus we cannot show the soul
to be ``except[ed] from the perishability to which matter is always subjected'' (A356).
If the self cannot be shown to be simple, can it at least be shown to be numerically identical? In his criticism of
the third paralogism, Kant argues that it cannot. Of course, I find myself to be numerically
identical: the proposition that I am numerically identical ``really says no more than that in the whole time in which
I am conscious of myself, I am conscious of this time as belonging to the unity of my Self'' (A362). Because
the self is (according to the Deduction) the pure apperception uniting all my intuitions, it is to me by
definition a single, numerically identical, thing. However, another observer ``will still not infer the
objective persistence of my Self'' (A363), because my time---the time which is the form of
my intuition, and through which I am identical---is not the same as ``the time in which the
observer posits me'' (A363).
Kant provides, in the footnote on pp. A363--364, an interesting analogy. Imagine the collision of
two elastic balls, one moving and one at rest. Upon the collision, the moving ball imparts to the other ``its entire
motion, hence its whole state'' (A363). Likewise is it possible that, if indeed there are substances that
think, the self (the I) moves from one substance to another. Since this would involve the transfer of all the I's
representations---including that of its Self---the I would be completely unaware of this flux. Kant poses a similar argument on A364 proper: ``we cannot judge even from our own consciousness whether as
soul we are persisting or not, because we ascribe to our identical self only that of which we are conscious''.
Something (such as the nature of our supposed substance) of which we are not conscious is not proved identical by
the identity of our consciousness.
As with the first two paralogisms, Kant's B Critique views this
principle as resulting from a confusion between analytic and synthetic propositions. Likewise, he makes a
similar distinction between representation and (metaphysical) substance: I am identical as concerns ``the
subject, of which I can become conscious in every representation'' (B408), but not the person, ``the
consciousness of the identity of its own substance as a thinking being in all changes of state'' (B409). The
identity of the first comes from the very definitions of `subject' and `consciousness', and is ``hence an
analytic proposition''. The identity of the second, the person, would be a synthetic proposition, and is
therefore (since it does not concern an object of experience) outside the scope of reason.
The fourth paralogism is perhaps the trickiest; Kant certainly stumbles here. The paralogism is that ``objects of
outer sense'' are of ``doubtful existence'' (A366--367). The existence of objects of outer experience is not
perceived, since perception ``is properly only a determination of apperception''; thus it is only inferred from
changes in my inner state (which I presumably can perceive). Thus does Kant describe idealism.
Kant maintains himself to be, of course, a transcendental idealist.
That is, he holds that appearances ``are all together to be regarded as representations and not as things in themselves'' (A369). Such a system, however, lends itself easily to what he terms empirical
realism. Kant can claim that matter truly, and undoubtedly, exists; this is not because he claims to
have transcendent knowledge of matter, but rather because matter is a product of the self-consciousness.
Thus the existence of objects may ``be proved in the same way as the existence of myself as a thinking being''
(A370)---that is to say, they can be shown to exist because they are necessary representations.
Kant sees his beliefs here as being substantially different from those of traditional idealists. He
claims that ``all those psychologists who cling to empirical idealism are transcendental realists''---and here he
falls into error. Kant was so concerned with the ``Copernican revolution'' of his transcendental
idealism that he failed to see that its foundations had been gestating for some time. In particular, Bishop
Berkeley, one of the dogmatic idealists that Kant so maligns, was something of a transcendental
idealist. From A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge:
35. I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we can apprehend either by sense or reflection.
That the things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The
only thing whose existence we deny is that which Philosophers call Matter or corporeal substance. And in doing
of this there is no damage done to the rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will never miss it. The Atheist indeed
will want the colour of an empty name to support his impiety; and the Philosophers may possibly find they have lost
a great handle for trifling and disputation.
The primary difference between
Berkeley and
Kant seems to be the definitions of
`
substance' and of `
existence' (as the latter pertains to
matter).
Kant holds that
matter
exists only if speak of it as
appearance---that is, as
representation.
Berkeley holds that
matter does not exist, because it is supposedly an
unthinking substance, which for him cannot exist separate from
mind. The gap in
meaning between the two, whatever the words, is less than
Kant would like
to admit. No doubt, if
Berkeley were given
Kant's definitions of `
matter' and
`
substance', he would agree with
Kant's claims regarding their
transcendental ideality. And, as the
above-quoted passage indicates, he would probably accord with
Kant in their
empirical reality as
appearance.
Kant no doubt realised sometime between 1780 and 1786 that the fourth paralogism read as a
crypto-Berkeleian account of metaphysics. Thus Kant introduced in the B edition of the Critique a new ``Refutation of Idealism'' (B274--279). There, Kant claims that
the representation of the self would not even be possible without external objects. Likewise, the
criticism of the fourth paralogism states that the distinction between my self and outer objects does not even
prove ``whether this consciousness of myself would even be possible without things outside me through which
representations are given to me'' (B409). In fact, in the Refutation, he even claims that
perception is possible ``only through a thing outside me and not through the mere representation of
a thing outside me'' (B275).
How does this last statement reconcile with Kant's transcendental idealism? Transcendental
idealism is, according to Kant, the doctrine that ``all objects of an experience possible for us are
nothing but appearances, i.e, mere representations'' (B518). Yet in the Refutation of Idealism he argues for the
necessity of ``a thing outside me'', rather than ``the mere representation of a thing outside
me''. Thus pure reason has proven the existence of things that are not representation. Is this really all that
bad? Pure reason, after all, proved the existence of the transcendental self (in the Transcendental Deduction),
without ascribing it any properties. Likewise, the Refutation proves what seemed to underlie as an assumption the A
Critique: that there is something metaphysically outside ourselves which
grounds our representation. We cannot know anything about this something---merely that it exists. It is thus to
Kant an important idea which refutes Berkeleian dogmatic idealism and provides the means for
refuting Cartesian sceptical idealism.
Conclusion
The paralogisms, or at least the first three, provide a mostly consistent view of the self---one which expands on
that developed in the Transcendental Deduction. Kant views the self (the transcendental self, that
is) as Something which exists, but to which no properties can be ascribed. It is neither appearance nor thing in
itself, but merely a placeholder for that which underlies our perception. In the B edition, the fourth
paralogism refers to the Refutation of Idealism, which proves the existence of a similar Something behind our
representations of objects. Unlike Locke's ``something I know not what'', these Somethings are
completely unknown to us: they do not exist before intuition, and can thus not provide us with cognition. Thus
Kant maintains substance as appearance, while making two important traditional substances (the
mind-independent object and the self) into unknowable but nonetheless existent things.