University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 3-9-2009 Roots and Role of the Imagination in Kant: Imagination at the Core Michael Thompson University of South Florida Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons Scholar Commons Citation Thompson, Michael, "Roots and Role of the Imagination in Kant: Imagination at the Core" (2009). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/50 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Roots and Role of the Imagination in Kant: Imagination at the Core by Michael Thompson A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Martin Schönfeld Ph.D. Roger Ariew, Ph.D. Sidney Axinn, Ph.D. Charles Guignon, Ph.D. Date of Approval: March 9, 2009 Keywords: Deduction, Logic, A priori, Space, Time © Copyright 2009, Michael Thompson Table of Contents Abstract iii Introduction 1 Chapter One: Problematics 5 The Problem of the Imagination 5 The Problem of Kant Studies 15 Methodology 17 Generalist Narratives 23 Chapter Two: Imagination in Greek Philosophy 35 Promethean Imaginings 35 Plato 37 Aristotle 49 Chapter Three: Imagination in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 70 Transition from Greek to Medieval 70 St. Augustine of Hippo 76 St. Thomas Aquinas 94 Chapter Four: Imagination in Early Modern Philosophy 108 Transition from Medieval to Modern 108 The Renaissance- Pico della Mirandolla 112 Descartes 117 D. Locke and Hume 144 Chapter Five: Imagination in Kant‟s Architectonic 162 Kantian Concerns 162 Kant‟s Concern 173 Chapter Six: Imagination in the Transcendental Deduction 178 The A-deduction 178 Reactions to the Deduction 198 i Chapter Seven: An Integrative Proposal for a New Deduction 206 A New Deduction: Objective Validity 206 Schematism: Objective Reality 218 From A to B 224 Critics and Defenders 237 Chapter Eight: Is the Imagination a Faculty, One or Two? 257 Chapter Nine: Imagination and Error Production 273 Principled Error Production 273 Summary of 1st Critique 290 Chapter Ten: Implications and Integration I: Imagination in the Critique of Practical Reason 296 Chapter Eleven: Implications and integration II: Imagination in the Critique of Judgment 320 Conclusion 343 Works Cited 346 About the Author ` End Page ii Roots and Role of the Imagination in Kant: Imagination at the Core Michael Thompson ABSTRACT Kant‟s critical philosophy promises to overturn both Empiricism and Rationalism by arguing for the necessity of a passive faculty, sensibility, and an active faculty, understanding, in order for cognition to obtain. Kant argues in favor of sense impression found in standard empirical philosophies while advocating conceptual necessities like those found in rational philosophies. It is only in the synthesis of these two elements that cognition and knowledge claims are possible. However, by affirming such a dualism, Kant has created yet another problem familiar to the history of philosophy, one of faculty interaction. By affirming two separate and exclusive capacities necessary for cognition, Kant has bridged the gap between the two philosophical traditions, but created a gap that must be overcome in order to affirm his positive programmatic. Kant himself realizes the difficulty his new philosophy faces when he claims the two sources of knowledge must have a “common, but unknown root.” To complete Kant‟s program one must ask: “What bridges the gap between sensible intuition and conceptual understanding?” In my dissertation, I turn to Kant‟s philosophy and find the answer to this question in the productive imagination. In order to evaluate the viability of this answer, I iii problematize the imagination as it has been found in the history of Western philosophy. By tracing the historical use of the imagination in archetypal figures from both empiricist and rationalist traditions, one finds a development of imagination that culminates in the fundamental formulation found in Kant‟s Critique of Pure Reason. In his critical philosophy, Kant synthesizes the imagination (Einbildungskraft) and the use of imagination found in both traditions, thus demonstrating its role in both sensation and understanding. By employing the imagination at both sensorial and conceptual levels, Kant has found, I argue, the liaison that overcomes the dualism established by his requirements for knowledge, as well as the common root for both. iv Introduction Due to technical vocabulary, complexity of thought and overall intricacy of Kant‟s philosophical position, isolating any one element of his cognitive apparatus in order to make clear its function, status, role and employment in cognition presents an interpreter with a number of challenges. For example, isolating sensibility from the rest of the cognitive structures e.g. the understanding and reason, and determining its constituent role in knowledge production appears to be nearly impossible if not entirely so. How can one understand this element without reference to its counterpart, and, furthermore, how can one clearly determine its role in cognition without the contraposing faculty with which it combines in knowledge production? By focusing on one element in Kant‟s philosophy, one runs the risk of failing to illustrate said element‟s proper place in Kant‟s critical philosophy. And yet, one cannot understand Kant‟s philosophy without providing an analytic of the elements by which one can isolate constitutive parts and determine them in their interactions. For this essay, I would like to propose that an isolation of one element is not only possible, but also necessary in an interpretation, defense and emendation of Kant‟s critical works. By focusing on the imagination, one will be able, I argue, to interpret and defend Kant‟s critical evaluation of scientific, metaphysical, practical and aesthetic knowledge. Knowledge is, according to Kant, a synthesis of two 1 separate and heterogeneous faculties, sensibility and understanding. With such a formulation, Kant must present an explanation for how two such disparate faculties can be synthesized. The imagination, I contend, is just such a liaison between sensibility and understanding. My intent here is to focus on the imagination in order to gain greater insight on this “blind but indispensible function” as well as to defend Kant‟s description and prescription for knowledge claims. Moreover, by focusing on the imagination one is able to further illustrate central doctrines of Kant‟s critical philosophy. Describing the functions of other faculties as well as the origin and development of their products is one such chief concern. By defining knowledge as a synthesis of the products of sensibility and the understanding, intuitions and concepts respectively, Kant presents himself and the reader with a considerable dualism. Sensibility has its own processes and products separate from understanding. So too does the understanding have its own processes and products removed from the influence of sensibility. By bifurcating knowledge production between two separate faculties, Kant resurrects and defends a doctrine that will reconcile the passivity of empirical sensation with the activity, spontaneity, of intellectual processes involved in understanding. But such a dualism presents Kant with a number of problems: What are the origins of the products of both capacities, that is, what is the source for the elemental factors involved in the separate faculties, what do they have in common, and what ensures the correct applicability of concepts to intuitions, in short, their objective validity? If they are mutually exclusive faculties and their products are radically different, how can such a synthesis come about, and 2 what applicability do we find in human experience, in short, their objective reality? Kant must address not only the sources and the correctness of the products of the faculties, but he must also demonstrate that they are connected in application and use in knowledge claims. By turning to the imagination, I hope to present a coherent interpretation and defense of this central doctrine of Kant‟s critical works, but also to gain insight into this overlooked and often marginalized, but necessary, capacity of human cognition. Rather than approaching this topic through the regular means—by examining the arguments found in the Transcendental Deduction of the 1st Critique, an approach most Anglo-American Kant scholars pursue—I prefer to examine the imagination in several of Kant‟s works. The Anglo-American debate has combined to present a standard interpretation, one which posits Kant‟s pure concepts, categories, as having no explanation other than his assumption and emendation of Aristotle‟s categories in conjunction with a table of logical judgments. To combat this interpretation, I would like to center the focus of this protracted debate around the use Kant makes of the imagination. The mediating capacity of the imagination, between sensibility and understanding, is a provocative suggestion Kant himself makes, one to which non- Anglo-American philosophers only occasionally attend and Anglo-American interpreters