2. Sumário da Dedução transcendental na interpretação de A. B. Dickerson

Nas páginas 201-203, Dickerson fornece um sumário de sua interpretação em vinte seis passos.

SUMMARY OF THE B-DEDUCTION

The representationalist background

1. All cognition occurs via the mind’s immediate awareness of its own internal representational states. (Kant’s representationalist starting point.)

2. These representations are not intrinsically available to the subject’s awareness; that is, unconscious representations are logically possible. (Leibnizian claim.)

3. Therefore, cognition must involve a special reflexive act of brining representations to awareness—that is, it must involve the apperception of representations. (From 1 and 2.)

4. A discursive mind is a mind that is receptive in cognition to an independent reality. (Definition of ‘discursive’.)

5. Therefore, in cognition the discursive mind apperceives its own internal states as presenting an independent objective world to itself. (From 3 and 4.)

6. That is to say that discursive cognition is the apperception of sensible intuitions. (From 5 and the definition of ‘sensible intuition’—as a determination of the faculty of receptivity (or sensibility) which the subject grasps as presenting an object.)

7. All objects of sensible intuitions are represented as complex. (Implicit assumption—certainly valid in the case of human cognition; for in representing objects in space and/or time one thereby represents them as complex (e.g. as potentially divisible into parts).)

8. Therefore, discursive cognition is the apperception of unified complex representations. (From 6 and 7.)

The master argument (§16)

9. To apperceive unified complex representations is to apperceive all of the component representations as hanging together in a unity. (The ‘principle of the necessary unity of apperception’—an analytic truth.)

10. Such ‘unity of apperception’ is possible only if the apperception of a unified complex representation is holistic rather than atomistic, and therefore involves a spontaneous synthesis. (The master argument of §16.)

11. Therefore all apperception of unified complex representations must involve a spontaneous synthesis. (From 9 and 10.)

12. Therefore, ( α ) all discursive cognition must involve a spontaneous synthesis. (From 8 and 11.)

The objectivity criterion (§§ 17-18)

13. The discursive subject’s spontaneous synthesis can result in an objectively valid representation (i.e. a cognition) only if that synthesis is necessarily and universally valid (i.e., would be performed the same way by all logically possible discursive cognisers). (From analysis of the concept of objectivity.)

14. Therefore, the discursive subject’s spontaneous synthesis can result in a cognition only if it is ‘pure’ or non-empirical—that is, grounded solely upon essential features of the discursive cognizing subject. (From 13.)

Judgment (§ 19)

15. The act of discursive cognition (the act of cognizing an object in one’s internal states) is a judgment. (Kant’s analysis of the concept of judgment.)

16. Therefore, the discursive cognizing mind is essentially a judging mind. (From 15.)

The categories (§20)

17. Therefore, the discursive subject’s spontaneous synthesis can result in a cognition only if that synthesis is grounded solely upon the essential features of the act of judgment. (From 14 and 16.)

18. The essential features of the act of judgment are the logical functions listed in the ‘table of judgment’. (From the ‘metaphysical deduction’.)

19. Therefore, the discursive subject’s spontaneous act of synthesis can result in cognition only if that synthesis is governed by the logical functions. (From 17 and 18.)

20. The logical functions, insofar as they govern the spontaneous synthesis of intuitions involved in discursive cognition, are the categories. (From the ‘metaphysical deduction.’)

21. Therefore, ( β ) if discursive cognition involves a spontaneous synthesis, then this synthesis must be governed by the categories. (From 19 and 20.)

The conclusion of § 20

22. Therefore, discursive cognition must involve a category-governed spontaneous synthesis (and thus the representational content of that cognition is, in part, determined by the categories). (From 12 and 21.)

Our a priori knowledge of space and time (§ 26)

23. Space and time in general are represented by us (human beings) as objects (rather than as common properties of objects); and thus the representations of space and time in general (i.e., our ‘formal intuitions’) are themselves unified complex representations. (From the Transcendental Aesthetic.)

24. Therefore, we cognize space and time in general via a category-governed synthesis. (From 22 and 23.)

25. Therefore, the structure of space and time in general is a determination of the category-governed structure of discursive experience in general. (From 24.)

26. Therefore, our a priori knowledge of that category-governed structure (which we have via arguments of the Critique) is a source of a priori knowledge of the structure of space and time in general (and therefore a potential means of explaining our a priori knowledge of synthetic principles of geometry, mechanics, etc.). (From 25.)

Bibliografia

DICKERSON, A. B. Kant on representation and objectivity. Cambridge University Press, 2003. pp. 201-3.