Chapter 3, Section 6: Why do the transcendental deduction of categories
Title: Why are categories universally valid?
Deduction : Giving proof that something is true, taken from legal terms. The study of a legal act by a jurist should not only clarify the factual issues, but also the legality of the fact, and provide a proof, stating the legal basis of the matter, in order to prove the legitimacy of its rights .
Deduction is divided into empirical deduction and a priori deduction
Empirical deduction : simply stating a concept by empirical means (such as psychological means), involving only its de facto origin. This concept always has empirical facts to guarantee its objective reality within a certain range, so this kind of deduction is not a problem.
Transcendental deduction : explain why pure concepts have universal validity, pure concepts do not come from experience, they are independent of experience, but they must play a role in knowing objects, must be applied to empirical facts, and this application must be It is a universal necessity in experience, an a priori application. Why, then, are these categories for asserting that all empirical objects must conform to these categories, before any empirical object is given? (Specifically, for example, the concept of causality, which is an a priori concept. We cannot be satisfied with the factual statement that causality is in daily life, people generally use this concept, like saying that because of cold, water Ice; the melting of ice into water by heat, etc., are nothing but statements of fact. Now the transcendental deduction asks why the concept of causality can be applied to these objects, and makes these events have A universal necessity, where does this objective validity of causality come from?) For the category, even if found in all existing experience, cannot determine its objective universal applicability, and it is very likely that only we Subjective psychological empirical facts (eg Hume understood causality as a psychological "habit").
We know that objects and concepts must agree if our knowledge is to be objectively valid. The agreement between an object and a concept is possible only in the following two ways:
First, the object makes the concept possible, that is, knowledge conforms to the object;
Then the concept is the concept of experience, and the concept of experience has no universal and necessary validity, so this method is impossible. The only possible way is the second way, where concepts make objects possible.
Second, the concept makes the object possible, that is, the object conforms to knowledge.
A concept is a priori if it makes an object possible. Proving that my a priori concepts make objects possible, that is, proving the "legality" that our categories make objects possible, is called "transcendental deduction" of categories. All in all, since Kant traces back to the a priori basis of cognition, namely categories, in the field of human cognition, the universal necessity and objective necessity of these categories cannot be guaranteed without transcendental deduction of a concept.
The transcendental deduction of the concept is divided into the deduction of time and space and the transcendental deduction of the category
1. The deduction of the concepts of space-time, these two intuitive forms, has been done in the "metaphysical clarification" and "transcendental clarification" of space-time in "Transcendental Sensibility Theory". This interpretation is direct and relatively easy. The relationship between the perceptual intuition form (space-time) and the object is direct, and any experience thing cannot be imagined without the space-time, so the innate relationship between the space-time and the object is intuitive and self-evident.
2. The transcendental deduction of the category, which is much more difficult, because the concept itself cannot be intuitive, and the relationship with the object is indirect. Therefore, some people think that it is possible to imagine an empirical object without categories, and it can also appear only by intuition or perceptual impressions (as envisaged by Locke, Hume, etc.). Intellectual concepts such as categories are a priori, have nothing to do with experience, and are subjective. In this way, if a subjective thing is to be applied to an "objective" object, it must be deduced, otherwise it will be untenable and "illegal". Kant believes that if it can be proved that only with the premise of the category, any object of experience can be thought and any empirical knowledge can be obtained, then the legal right of the category to be applied a priori to all the objects of experience will find a justification, and the "transcendental deduction of the category" "It's done.
Explain the necessity of deduction of innate concepts from the perspective of the history of philosophy
From the history of philosophy, Locke's work is to illustrate the application of these concepts of understanding from the perspective of empiricism. Kant affirmed that Locke had opened up a new way for the study of knowledge; he also criticized Locke to explain the origin of ideas from the perspective of experience, and only progressed from some special perceptions to the study of general concepts.
Kant believes that this kind of research, at most, is a statement of the empirical facts of human cognition, without deducting these concepts (explaining the legitimacy), which cannot withstand Hume's scrutiny. Hume believed that Locke's discourse could not explain the necessary connection between cause and effect. Kant pointed out that if concepts such as causality are interpreted by Locke as empirically derived, then it cannot have universal necessity and therefore cannot constitute knowledge.
From this situation in the history of philosophy, it is not feasible to use experience to explain the innate concept of understanding. Concepts of this type are not empirical concepts, and since they are not empirical, they should not be empirically proven, but should be demonstrated to demonstrate how this is not empirical and how it can be applied to and made possible by experience. This requires a priori deduction of such innate concepts.
How to perform a priori deduction of categories?
According to Kant, there are two ways to solve the problem
1. Objects alone make representations (categories a priori representations) necessarily possible;
2. The representation alone makes the object possible.
The first method does not work, because in this way, the relationship between the two can only be empirical, and the appearance can never have a priori, that is, there can be no universal necessity. Therefore, only the second approach is taken.
The transcendental deduction of categories is the most important, the most incomprehensible, and the most misunderstood part of the Critique of Pure Reason.
Difficulty: Category is the innate form of intellect, it is subjective, but now it needs to use "objective" objects, so how can it be objective and effective? Due to the criticism of this part of the A version of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant revised the expression of this part in the B version, and his views remain unchanged.
Version A is carried out from an analytical point of view, like peeling an onion, peeling off the existing empirical knowledge layer by layer until the growth point inside. A version of the deduction is divided into two parts: "subjective deduction" and "objective deduction". The so-called "subjective deduction", in simple terms, is to explore the possible conditions of knowledge from the subjective psychological aspect, that is, to explore the subjective innate conditions required for this process from the process of knowledge occurrence. The so-called "objective deduction" starts from the highest unity of understanding, that is, the "synthetic unity of the origin of apperception", and deduces the a priori legitimacy or universal inevitability of categories applied to all experience objects.
Version B is carried out from a comprehensive perspective, starting from a fundamental point and incorporating other links into it. Version B has been greatly changed from Version A, removing many psychological arguments and emphasizing "objective deduction". Just because A and B have their own emphasis, the subjective deduction of A and the objective deduction of B are used to explain the transcendental deduction of the category.