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Locke, Kant, and Synthetic a Priori Cognition Brian A. Chance Locke, Kant, and Synthetic APriori Cognition Abstract: This paper attempts to shed light on threerelated issues that bear di- rectlyonour understandingofLockeand Kant.The first is whether Kant believes Lockemerelyanticipates his distinction between analytic and synthetic judg- ments or also believes Lockeanticipateshis notion of synthetic apriori cogni- tion. The second is what we as readers of Kant and Lockeshould think about Kant’sview whatever it turnsout to be, and the third is the nature of Kant’sjus- tification for the comparison he drawsbetween his philosophyand Locke’s. I argue(1) that Kant believes Lockeanticipates both the analytic-synthetic distinc- tion and Kant’snotion of synthetic apriori cognition, (2)thatthe best justifica- tion for Kant’sclaim drawsonLocke’sdistinction between trifling and instruc- tive knowledge,(3) that the arguments against this claim developed by Carson, Allison, and Newman fail to undermine it,and (4) that Kant’sown jus- tification for his claim is quite different from what manycommentators have thoughtitwas (or should have been). Introduction Kant’srelationship to his empiricist predecessors is complex, and this complex- ity is perhaps no more evident than in the caseofLocke, whose philosophyin- fluenced not onlythe likes of Berkeley,Hume, and Reid but alsoageneration of Kant’sGermanpredecessors.¹ The “famous Locke” is the first philosopher Kant mentionsinthe Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), but he is also critical of Locke’s “physiology of the human understanding” and contrasts his transcendental de- Citations from the Critique of Pure Reason use the standardA/B formattorefer to the pagesof the first (A) and second (B) editions. Citations from Kant’sother worksuse the volume number and pagination of KantsgesammelteSchriften,edited by the Royal Prussian(laterGerman, then Berlin-Brandenburg) Academy of the Sciences. vols. (Berlin: De Gruyter —). Quotations from Kant aretaken from the CambridgeEdition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, in some cases withslight modifications. All other translations aremyown. Citations from Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Essay)givethe book, chapter, and section numbers and follow the Nidditch edition. See Pollok (), the literaturecitedtherein, and Beiser (, –)for discussionof Locke’sinfluenceoneighteenth-century German philosophy. 10.1515/kantyb-2015-0003 Authenticated | [email protected] author's copy Download Date | 8/15/15 4:19 PM 48 Brian A. Chance duction of the pure concepts of the understanding with Locke’sattempted empir- ical deduction of them (CPR Aix, Axand B127).² Elsewhere, however,Kant is far more complimentary of Locke. Forheclaims in anumber of places that Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding contains ahint of the distinction be- tween synthetic and analytic judgments, and in the Prolegomena he appears to claim that Lockeevenanticipates his notion of synthetic apriori cognition.³ Giventhe importance of these distinctions to Kant’sepistemology,this is high praise indeed. Commenters are in general agreementthat Kant believes Lockeanticipates the analytic-synthetic distinction,but they disagree about whether he endorses the further claim thatLockeanticipates his notion of synthetic apriori cogni- tion.⁴ There is alsodisagreement about which, if either,ofthese views is true as athesis about Lockeand Kant,independent of what Kant mayunderstand his relationship to Locketobe.⁵ Finally, on the assumption that Kant endorses the stronger claim that Lockeanticipates boththe analytic-synthetic distinction and his notion of synthetic apriori cognition, an assumption Ishallargue is cor- rect,questions have been raised about Kant’sjustification for this claim and, in particular, about whyhedoes not appeal to the Lockean distinction between tri- fling and instructive knowledge,adistinction that Ishall argueprovides good evidence for the stronger claim.⁶ My goal in this paper is to shed light on this difficult set of issues and, in the process, on the relationship between Lockeand Kant.Insection one, Iargue that Kant’scomments about Lockesuggest he believes Lockeanticipates both the an- alytic-synthetic distinction and the notion of synthetic apriori cognition. In sec- tion two, Ipresent what Itake to be the best justification for this claim by com- See Guyer ()for adiscussion of Kant and Lockeonthis point. See Prolegomena to any futuremetaphysics that may come forward as ascience (hereafter, Pro- legomena)AA:; On adiscoverywhereby anynew critique of purereason is to be made super- fluous by an older one (hereafter, On adiscovery)AA:;and R dated to –.I return to these passages in section one. Beck (, )and Cicovacki (, )hold that Kant endorses the stronger view,asdoes Guyer in Kant (, ,n), while Ayers (, )suggests Kant endorses onlythe weaker view. Fraser in the annotationscontained in Locke (:II, , ); Gibson (, ); and Ryle (, ff.) suggest the stronger view is true, while Caird (, f.) and Ewing(, )suggest onlythe weakerview is true. Carson (, )assumes the truth of the strong view for the purposes of her paper, but her criticisms of Lockemake clear that she would onlyendorsethe weakerview,while Allison (, )and Newman (, –)reject both views. See Beck (, )and Cicovacki (, ). Authenticated | [email protected] author's copy Download Date | 8/15/15 4:19 PM Locke, Kant, and Synthetic APriori Cognition 49 paring these Kantian distinctions to Locke’sdistinction between trifling and in- structive knowledge.Insection three, Iconsider three arguments against the claim thatinstructive knowledge meetsthe criteria Kant lays out for synthetic apriori cognition and arguethat each is unsatisfactory.Insection four,Iidentify Kant’sjustification for the claim that Lockeanticipates his notion of synthetic a priori cognitionand arguethat it is plausible but different in important ways from the justification presented in section two. In particular, while the justifica- tion Iprovide and which manyofKant’scommentators believeheshould have provided drawsheavilyonLocke’saccount of mathematical judgment,Kant’sac- tual justification ignores Locke’saccount of mathematical judgment completely and focuses instead on claims he makes about bodyand the mechanics of bodily motion. While the strongest argument thatcan be made on Kant’sbehalf for the claim that Lockeanticipates his notion of synthetic apriori cognitionrelies on Locke’strifling-instructivedistinction and his use of mathematical judgments to illustrate that distinction,the best reconstruction of Kant’sjustification for this claim relies,surprisingly in my view,onsimilarities between aclaim Lockemakes about motion and arguments Kant develops in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. 1Kant’scomments on Locke Although Kant credits Hume in the Prolegomena with striking aspark he will later kindle, thereisnoindication there or elsewherethathebelieves Hume an- ticipates his notion of synthetic apriori cognition and onlythe passingsugges- tion that he believes Hume anticipates the analytic-synthetic distinction.⁷ With Locke, however,there is good reason to think Kant believes he anticipates both. Kant discusses Lockeinanumber of places,but onlythreeofthem bear directlyonthe question at hand: Locke sawthe distinctionbetween analytic and syntheticjudgmentsinhis essayconcern- ing human understanding.(AA 17:278) By contrast Ifind ahint [Wink]ofthis division [between analytic and synthetic judgments] alreadyinLocke’s essays on human understanding.For in Book IV,ChapterIII, §9f., after he had alreadydiscussed the various connections of representationsinjudgments and the sourcesofthe connections,ofwhich he located the one in identity or contradiction (ana- lytic judgments) but the other in the existenceofrepresentationsinasubject (synthetic See AA : and CPR A /B . Authenticated | [email protected] author's copy Download Date | 8/15/15 4:19 PM 50 Brian A. Chance judgments),hethen acknowledgesin§10 that our cognition (apriori)ofthese last is very restricted and almost nothingatall. (AA4:270) In order to be satisfied of this, we have onlytoexamine the examplesthat have been pre- viouslyintroduced [die man bisher angeführt hat]toprove that the distinction in question [between analytic and synthetic judgments] is alreadyknown and fullydeveloped in phi- losophy, albeit under other names.The first one (pointed out by myself, though onlyas somewhat like it) is from Locke,who assigns whathecalls cognition of coexistencetojudg- ments of experience, and cognition of relation to moral judgments;but he does not give a name to the syntheticaspect of judgments in general; nor,bythis distinction frompropo- sitions of identity,has he extractedthe most minimal of general rules for pure apriori cog- nition as such. (AA8:245,translation modified) The first of these passages is anote Kant made in the 1760s to his copy of Baum- garten’s Metaphysica,and it claims unambiguouslythat Lockeanticipates the analytic-syntheticdistinction. Unfortunately, it tells us nothing about whether Kant also thoughtLockeanticipates the notion of the synthetic apriori since it was written at atime when Kant thoughtthatall synthetic cognitionwas apos- teriori. The second passageisfrom the Prolegomena. It is part of the first paragraph of the section of the Prefaceentitled “Note on the general division of judgments into analytic and synthetic”.Herewefind aweaker version of Kant’sclaim in the reflection from the 1760s (instead of simply ‘seeing’ the analytic-synthetic dis- tinction, Lockeisonlycredited with ‘hinting’ at it), but
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