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Kant on Unconscious Mental Activity Kant on Unconscious Mental Activity Tom Rockmore It is tempting but false to think that the unconscious was discovered at a given point in time when we suddenly became conscious of it. It is more accurate to say that long before that point, whenever it may be, it was not absent but present. Though we were unconscious of the unconscious as it were, it, however, understood in different ways, played a variable role in a large number of theories. Long before Freud focused on the unconscious in a way that has never ceased to capture the attention of the public, oth- ers, including philosophers, were interested directly and indirectly in the unconscious.1 Kant, who thinks of human beings as rational, emphasizes conscious activity. He believes that the Enlightenment culminates in the challenge to dare to know (sapere aude) in thinking independently of authority. He further believes that a moral individual must act autonomously, that is, according to principles that must without exception govern the actions of all rational beings. These are forms of conscious activity. But what if Kants theory of knowledge were based on unconscious activity? This paper will examine Kants epistemology in arguing that at the heart of the critical philosophy we find a conception of unconscious activity point- ing to an anti-Cartesian theory of the subject as a conscious but also an unconscious actor. I. Kants Theory on Consciousness, Self-consciousness and the Unconscious We can begin to discuss the unconscious in the critical philosophy by ad- dressing the triple distinction, familiar in the post-Freudian period, be- tween consciousness, self-consciousness and the unconscious. It is well 1 It has been known for some time that the unconscious was not invented by Freud. See L. L. Whyte, The Unconscious Before Freud, New York: Basic Books, 1960 and Henri F. Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Tradition of Dynamic Psychiatry, New York: Basic Books, 1970. DOI 10.1515/9783110265408.305, ©2017 Tom Rockmore, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs3.0 License. 306 Tom Rockmore known that the Greeks were concerned with the problem of non-being (to mei on). In the Sophist, Plato responds to Parmenides claim that non- being is impossible in claiming that, since in a sense it is, hence it is pos- sible. Non-being, which is not intelligible by itself, points toward and is only intelligible on the basis of being. For this reason, Hegel begins both his Logics with being and not with non-being. In the same way, self-consciousness and consciousness point toward the unconscious. Kant discusses consciousness and self-consciousness in the transcen- dental deduction. He explicitly claims, against Humes bundle theory of perception, that the unity of consciousness is a necessary condition for cognition.2 He also mentions “self-consciousness” several times. Though he has the term, it is unclear that he in fact has a theory of self-conscious- ness,3 which arguably only comes into the German idealist tradition with the self-described orthodox Kantian, Fichte. Kant famously claims to know Plato better than he knows himself.4 To Kants dismay, while Kant was still alive Fichte made the same claim about Kant. Though Kant rejected Fichtes position as impossible, Fichte interpreted this claim as meaning that he was even more Kantian than Kant. In the deduction of the categories, Kant twice mentions in rapid suc- cession that “a synthesis of the representations” is possible only “through consciousness of this synthesis (“consciousness of their synthesis”).5 Yet this point is dubious. Since consciousness is a condition of self-conscious- ness, there must be consciousness of a perceptual object, which is the re- sult of the synthesis of representations, prior to and as a condition of self- consciousness. In that case, self-consciousness cannot be a condition of synthesizing representations. Indeed, Kant seems ambivalent about this claim. For he earlier indicates that combination of the manifold takes place whether or not we are conscious of it.6 Some observers believe Kants theory of consciousness implies or even entails a theory of self-consciousness.7 We detect what might be 2SeeKant,Critique of Pure Reason, B 133, p. 247. 3 According to Broad, “it is doubtful whether a single consistent doctrine [of self-con- sciousness—T. R.] can be extracted from his various utterances.” C. D. Broad, Kant: An Introduction, C. Lewy, ed., Cambridge: Cambride University Press, 1978, p. 234. 4SeeKant,Critique of Pure Reason, B 370, p. 396. 5SeeKant,Critique of Pure Reason B133,p.247. 6SeeKant,Critique of Pure Reason, B 130, p. 245. 7 Stephen Priest, “Kant, Descartes and Self-consciousness,” in The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 125 (Oct., 1981), pp. 348–351. He examines i. A. the view Kant on Unconscious Mental Activity 307 called a minimal theory of self-consciousness, with arguably Cartesian resonances, in the “Refutation of idealism.” The aim of this argument is to resolve the scandal of the existence of the external world, the same problem, which G. E. Moore later raised against idealism in gener- al.8 Kant seems to be claiming that, if we are aware of ourselves as having ideas, there must be a mind-independent external world, which causes this awareness, and which, hence, exists. The presupposition is that, as Sartre later says, all consciousness is consciousness of something. Hence, if there is consciousness, then it is caused by the world, which must exist. The view Kant outlines in the “Refutation of idealism” is consistent with Kants generally anti-Cartesian conception of the subject. Descartes argues that the existence of the subject, which cannot be denied, is the un- shakeable basis for a theory of knowledge constructed on that founda- tion. According to Descartes the subject is self-conscious, thus certain of its existence, prior to and apart from knowing anything else. Descartes claim for the cogito, namely, that if the subject thinks, it must exist, is based on self-consciousness, not on consciousness of anything different from the self. Since Descartes understands self-consciousness as immedi- ate, not as mediated by consciousness of anything different from the self, he does not argue that the subject is conscious of the world, hence con- scious of itself as conscious of the world. Kants restatement of the Car- tesian argument is intended to prove the existence of the external world without claiming anything about the subject beyond self-conscious- ness. Since he denies intellectual intuition, he further denies direct access to oneself. Hence, he cannot argue from his own existence to the exis- tence of the world. Rather, he presupposes his own existence in arguing for a proof of the existence of the external world. This can be formulated as the claim that I am not conscious of myself as I am but only that I am.9 In other words: Descartes argues from self-consciousness to knowledge of the world, but Kant argues from self-consciousness to knowledge of the existence of the world. The Kantian argument from self-consciousness to the world is weaker than the Cartesian model. On the one hand, the basic distinction between that consciousness entails self-consciousness, which he attributes to Strawson and Bennett. 8 See G. E. Moore, “The Refutation of Idealism,” in Mind, n. s. 12, no. 48, October 1903, pp. 433– 453. 9SeeKant,Critique of Pure Reason, B 157, p. 259. 308 Tom Rockmore appearance and reality, or phenomenon and noumenon, puts knowledge of the mind-independent world as it is beyond appearance out of concep- tual bounds. According to Kant, all knowledge begins with experience, but there is and cannot be experience of the noumenon. Since the latter can only be thought without contradiction,10 but cannot be given in expe- rience, it is arguably inconsistent even to assert its existence. If that is cor- rect, the effort to demonstrate the existence of the external world argua- bly either fails or at least requires further argument to buttress its claims. On the other hand, Kant, unlike Descartes, does not address the problem of skepticism with respect to the contents of consciousness, or ideas. It is unnecessary to invoke the fiction of an evil genius to imagine that the subject is aware of nothing more than what it itself dreams up. In this case as well, the proof of the external world would fail. Further, it is arguably problematic in the critical philosophy even to speak of self-con- sciousness, which implies an immediate grasp of oneself. Since Kant de- nies intellectual intuition, he concedes no more than that we can repre- sent ourselves but not that we can grasp ourselves as we are. Yet it seems odd to attribute self-consciousness to a subject, which is a mere ap- pearance, and which is conscious of no more than the appearance of the external world. II. On Kants Theory of the Unconscious In studying Kants view of the unconscious, we will be testing the limits of what, from a Kantian or indeed any other perspective, can be known. In an obvious sense, what is unconscious cannot become unconscious with- out in the process being destroyed. A possible difficulty in attributing a theory of the unconscious to Kant derives from his attitude toward psychology. In both the A and B editions Kant analyzes four paralogisms, which derive from a rational psychology, and which can only falsely be taken for a science of pure rea- son.11 Kants attitude toward psychology is ambivalent. He is suspicious of the possibility of a future science of empirical psychology on at least two grounds: as concerns what later came at the time of the early Husserl to be known as pyschologism, and with respect to the possibility, consistent with his denial that the subject has privileged access to itself, for instance 10 See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B 566, p.
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