Singularity in Immanuel Kant’s Transcendental Logic The Category of Totality at the Crossroads of Epistemology and Aesthetics A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Research Master in Philosophy Levi Haeck Academic year 2019-2020 Ghent University Supervisor: prof. dr. Gertrudis Van de Vijver Word Count: 11,301. 1 Einmal, am Morgen, ist ein Reiter da, und dann ein zweiter, vier, zehn. Ganz in Eisen, groß. Dann tausend dahinter: das Heer. Man muß sich trennen. - Rainer Maria Rilke (Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke) 2 3 Contents 1 INTRODUCTION | Domain and Motivation ............................................................................... 1 2 ORIENTATION | Audience, Venues, and Background- knowledge ......................................... 2 3 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................... 5 4 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... 6 5 PAPER | Exploring the Metaphysical Deduction of the Category of Totality from within the Analytic of the Mathematical Sublime ................................................................................... 7 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 7 (I). The Sublime ............................................................................................................................ 9 (A). Reflecting and Determining Judgments .............................................................................. 9 (B). Sublimity and Purposiveness ............................................................................................ 10 (II). Kant’s Multilayered Account of the Estimation of Totality ........................................... 13 (A). Differentiating between Numerical and Aesthetical Estimation of Totality ..................... 13 (B). Connecting Numerical and Aesthetical Estimation of Totality — A Singular Baseline .. 15 (C). The Singularity of the Imagination ................................................................................... 18 (III). Sublime and Categorial Totality ...................................................................................... 20 (A). From Mathematical Estimation to the Category of Totality ............................................. 20 (B). The Special Act of the Understanding .............................................................................. 22 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................. 25 References ................................................................................................................................... 25 4 5 1 INTRODUCTION | Domain and Motivation In this dissertation, I address Kant’s epistemological theory of object-constitution from within his doctrine of reflective, aesthetical judgments. Exegetically speaking, then, I read the Kritik der Urteilskraft (i.e., the third Critique) not merely as complementing but rather as substantially underlying the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (i.e., the first Critique). In that sense, this dissertation joins the established scholarly project set to investigate the epistemological relevance of the first part of the third Critique, which has thus given way to retrospective re-readings of the first Critique (cf. Kukla 2006, p. 23). The fruitfulness of this methodology, which has taken many forms over the past few decades, is especially due to foundational work by Longuenesse (1998) and Ginsborg (1990/2016), among others. In spite of my conviction that the most prominent outline of Kant’s epistemology is still to be found in the first Critique (and more specifically in the Analytic of concepts and principles), I too am convinced that in the third Critique Kant manages to stipulate certain ideas he could only suggestively hint at in the first. More specifically, I read Kant as upholding the claim that object-constitution, however formal and general this focus point of transcendental idealism may be, involves what I like to call singularity. I take Kant to argue, namely, that the twelve pure categories representing the formal conditions of possibility of the object, flowing from the discursive faculty of the understanding, are themselves grounded in the singular position of a moving, feeling, orientation-seeking, and arguably embodied subject. I am convinced that hints of such singularity should already be found in the first Critique. Infamously in the Transcendental Deduction, but also in the Dialectic, for instance, Kant subtly indicates how object-constitution not only involves a transcendental logic of general categories and functions of judgment, but (herewith) also a transcendental logic of singularity: Nicht das Bewusstsein des bestimmenden, sondern nur das bestimmbaren Selbst, d. i. meiner inneren Anschauung (so fern ihr Mannigfaltiges der allgemeinen Bedingung der Einheit der Apperception im Denken gemäß verbunden werden kann), ist das Object (KrV, B 407). Or, as Malpas (1999, p. 4) has it, already in the first Critique “Kant argues that for representations to be grasped as unified in some objective fashion it is also necessary that they be unified with respect to a single subject”. I am, nevertheless, convinced that in the third Critique Kant provides the idea of singularity with considerably more philosophical maturity. In this Critique, namely, the subject’s capacity for singularly feeling pleasure and displeasure is fully integrated in Kant’s more general account of the discursive capacity to judge.1 Whereas singularity’s role often remains a bit implicit in the first Critique, it is more thoroughly as well as more prominently developed in the third. 1 I must thank prof. Arthur Cools for pointing out this very obvious, yet dangerously overlooked truth. 1 Surprisingly, however, and contrary to my own intuitions, what is lacking from the literature that relates the first Critique’s epistemology to the third’s treatment of aesthetical judgments, is precisely an account of singularity. But even irrespective of singularity, it is peculiar to notice that the project of re-reading the first Critique in terms of the third, remains, in fact, quite superficial. The project of tackling Kant’s epistemology from within the third Critique is often (excluding Longuenesse, for example) without much exegetical effect. Yet strikingly non-existent, at least to my knowledge, are approaches to Kant’s epistemology taking seriously the singular aspects of the capacity to judge. Accordingly, this dissertation is driven to investigate the singularity pertaining to object-constitution, precisely by taking the third Critique at hand. The overall objective of this dissertation, be it in a very constrained way, is precisely to make a start with that. The article itself also shows that this is not without exegetical effect. In the article itself, I put forward an interpretation of the first Critique’s category of totality (or allness) based on Kant’s more general analysis of totality in the third Critique’s Analytic of the mathematical sublime. My basic assumption is that in his exposition of the mathematical sublime, Kant stresses that the category of totality, considered as one of the twelve transcendental modalities of the constitution of the object, anticipates at the same time that a subject must be able to comprehend or ‘take in’ a manifold of intuitions. If the latter fails, the category of totality’s quantitative determination fails as well. This allows me to read the Analytic of the sublime as presenting a category of totality — be it indirectly — that is itself anticipatory of its predication on the essentially singular standpoint of a judging subject. The Analytic of the sublime captures, thus, that however formal, discursive, and general its nature may be, the category of totality is nonetheless a singular matter. On that basis, I argue that it cannot be a coincidence that Kant takes the derivation of the category of totality to require a special act of the understanding. Accordingly, I relate the epistemology of the first Critique with the aesthetics of the third by giving singularity a more prominent and specific countenance, while showing that this can be exegetically effectuous. 2 ORIENTATION | Audience, Venues, and Background- knowledge In line with the introduction (cf. supra), my article should be of interest to epistemologists and philosophers of aesthetics in general. Apart from that, I hope my dissertation will a priori be of interest to every philosopher. Singularity seems to be an underdeveloped philosophical theme, not only in epistemology, but also in, say, ethics.2 Due to the outline of the article itself, however, the intended 2 With regard to singularity and ethics, my review of Lamia Berrada-Berca’s novel Kant et la petite robe rouge might be of interest (see Haeck 2020). 2 audience is above all that of scholars of Kant’s philosophy. In that regard, I could perhaps specify that the article is of value to Kant-scholars interested in epistemology, and to Kant-scholars interested in aesthetics. But maintaining such an opposition would be to deny the spirit of the article itself. I do not purport to give arguments for it, but I do like to contend that this dissertation is indicative